Hillary Clinton wins South Carolina Primary

PinkNews logo on a pink background surrounded by illustrated line drawings of a rainbow, pride flag, unicorn and more.

Hillary Clinton is believed to have won the South Carolina Primary by a large margin.

After only narrowly beating Bernie Sanders at the Nevada caucuses last weekend, Clinton was this week declared the winner in South Carolina.

The Associated Press called the race shortly after polls closed.

bernie 2

Exit polls placed Clinton 35 percent ahead of Sanders as a modest 532,000 ballots were cast, lower than predicted.

The result comes as a blow to Bernie Sanders ahed of ‘super Tuesday’, when Democrats across eleven states will vote.

After abandoning support for Clinton in 2008 when she ran against Obama, African American voters supported her 5-1 compared to Sanders, reports the New York Times.

Donald Trump was last weekend declared as the winner of the South Carolina Republican Primary, paving his way for the Republican nomination.

Hillary Clinton was forced to defend her previous views on same-sex marriage after she was quizzed by an audience member during a live debate.

Joe Sacco – a Las Vegas real estate agent and Bernie Sanders supporter – told the former Secretary of State that he had been a big supporter of both Clinton and her husband – former President Bill – ten years ago.

Hillary Clinton wins South Carolina Primary

However, Sacco said he lost faith in the pair when they refused to support marriage equality.

“Secretary Clinton, I do respect you very much. In fact, only a decade ago I was a very, very big supporter of yourself and your husband,” he began.

“It actually broke my heart when you said marriage was between a man and a woman. How can we trust that this isn’t just more political rhetoric?”

Clinton admitted, once again, that she had “evolved” on the issue – and was “glad” to have done so.

“I am a 100 percent supporter and I am absolutely adamant about protecting marriage equality,” she said.

And I think it’s significant that the Human Rights Campaign, the leading organisation in our country to ensure that the LGBT community has the rights they deserve, have endorsed me.”