Vote for the nominee, Trump or stay home? Winthrop Poll tests SC Democrats’ back-up plan
An overwhelming majority of likely South Carolina Democratic voters — particularly African American voters, who make up a core of the South Carolina Democratic Party’s primary voting bloc — say they are committed to voting for whoever the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee is should their first primary pick fail to win the nomination.
An exclusive Winthrop University Poll for The State shows 80% of S.C. Democratic voters say they will vote for the party’s nominee.
An even higher number of black voters — 85% — say they’ll do the same instead of staying home or backing President Donald Trump.
The Winthrop poll also found a small sliver of Democratic voters are poised to abandon their party’s vote if their first pick fails to meet the necessary requirement of delegates to secure the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination this summer.
In the poll, 5% of voters said they would vote for Trump in November if their primary choice does not win. Only 1% of black voters agreed.
Another 9% of Democratic voters said they would rather vote for a third-party candidate over staying home and not voting at all, and 7% of black voters said they would do the same. In both groups, 3% of those voters surveyed said they would not vote at all if their pick loses.
Another 4% said they weren’t sure whether they’d back the nominee, vote for Trump or stay home if their candidate loses.
What is becoming a tighter South Carolina primary contest on Feb. 29, Winthrop’s 2020 candidate poll out Thursday found former Vice President Joe Biden still the favorite among the current eight candidates still in the race. But the margin between Biden and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is shrinking. The poll put Sanders in second with 19% support among the state’s likely Democratic voters.
Mirroring a Fox News poll for South Carolina out last month, California billionaire Tom Steyer was again in third at 15%.
Winthrop surveyed 443 likely Democratic voters between Feb. 9 and 19. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.
Among black voters polled, the margin of error was plus or minus 5.9%.
This story was originally published February 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Vote for the nominee, Trump or stay home? Winthrop Poll tests SC Democrats’ back-up plan."
