Watch for this in South Carolina this weekend

After the cacophony of messages and commercials, and campaign events and overflowing mailboxes leading up to the South Carolina Republican presidential primary last Saturday, the word that comes to mind to describe the lead-up to this Saturday’s Democratic battle is “quiet.”
 
Some of the difference is that a then-six-man GOP field saturated the Palmetto State. But the Democratic race here Saturday between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is mostly serene because it has become a bit of a foregone conclusion: polls show Clinton beating Sanders by about 25 points. For several days this week, Sanders left the state for Super Tuesday battlegrounds where he feels he has a better chance, though he’s back Friday and Saturday to stump for votes. But Clinton has stayed in South Carolina, with Bill, and done multiple events daily, looking to bring home a big margin and take momentum into Tuesday’s huge multi-state battle.
 
The polls are likely correct on who will win in South Carolina. But they could be inaccurate as far as margin, for a number of reasons, tied both to the peculiarities of South Carolina and national trends.
 
First, take turnout. It is down by 23 points for the first three Democratic contests this year against the party’s last contested primary in 2008, while participation in Republican races is up about 24 percent over 2012. This year’s 737,000 GOP ballots in South Carolina was 22 percent higher than  in 2012, a staggering increase because four years ago there was only one primary to attract state voters who wanted a say. In South Carolina all voters are independents, and can vote in either primary, but not both, so large turnout in one contest is almost invariably matched by low totals in the other.
 
The combination of Clinton’s big lead sapping voter motivation and the crush at the GOP ballot boxes last week points to the possibility of low turnout, which can lead to erratic results. And the unpredictability of Clinton’s margin of victory, assuming she wins, is further complicated because pollsters have already fled the state. Most surveys of likely voters were completed over a week ago, and because some of them cast ballots in the GOP primary, are no longer eligible to vote in the Democratic one.
 
In a case of low turnout, the battle is over WHO turns out. Clinton has tirelessly sought the black vote, touring with victims and family members touched by racial and gun violence, and speaking in some of the poorest and highest-percentage minority communities in the state. When she spoke Thursday in Kingstree, she was addressing a community, Williamsburg County, where only 30 percent of adults have a high school diploma and about 65 percent of residents are black.
Sanders will try to do some of the same Friday and Saturday, most notably at one of Orangeburg’s historically black colleges, Claflin University, before heading to the state capital to rouse his metropolitan/college student base.
For Clinton the danger is that she cannot get black voters out to the polls in the way Barack Obama did. About twice as many black voters cast Democratic primary ballots in 2008 in South Carolina as did in 2004. And no one is really sure yet how Clinton’s complicated relationship with the black community will translate in this contest.
 
For Sanders, the challenge is more peculiar to this location. College students are the ones feeling the Bern most strongly, but in South Carolina, a lot of the college students, drawn by great weather, easy living and reasonable tuition, aren’t from here and may not be registered to vote.  About 41 percent of the University of South Carolina student body is from out of state, and that number is 31 percent for Clemson University.
 
Clinton can’t just beat Sanders here and make a believable declaration of inevitability heading into Tuesday. She has to destroy him at the ballot box. If she does, it will make a good case for her ability to carry the race nationally, even as it moves to states that favor Sanders. But if she wins by much less than 20 points, it’s going to play as a sign of vulnerability, not a decisive victory.