Boston Globe's Canellos on SC primary: "[A] lot of black women voted as blacks rather than as women"

Discussing the results of the January 26 South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, Boston Globe Washington bureau chief Peter Canellos said on C-SPAN's Washington Journal that the female vote in South Carolina "was a little bit skewed, obviously, because a lot of black women voted as blacks rather than as women in this case."

According to CNN's South Carolina exit poll, women comprised 61 percent of voters in the Democratic primary, and 54 percent of them voted for Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). Black women comprised 35 percent of voters, with 78 percent of them voting for Obama.

From the 7 a.m. ET hour of the January 27 edition of C-SPAN's Washington Journal:

GRETA WODELE (anchor): And what about Hillary Clinton's second-place win? What does it mean for her going forward?

CANELLOS: Well, it's sort of hard to say. I mean, I think that there was a little bit of feeling in the Clinton campaign that there could be a knock-out punch delivered in South Carolina. The big unknown was whether the black vote would go significantly for Obama. He was probably going to win it anyway, but whether he would get 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent, and exit polls say he got 80 and above. They also showed a very substantial black turnout. So, I think that's, you know, that's bad news for her, but it certainly doesn't undermine her core strength, which is with working-class voters.

WODELE: What about women? What about female voters? How did they vote in South Carolina? And what does that mean for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton?

CANELLOS: Well, it was a little bit skewed, obviously, because a lot of black women voted as blacks rather than as women in this case. So, Obama won the women's vote, but by a smaller margin than the men's vote. I think the -- I think that Clinton has shown that she's able to appeal to particularly a certain older demographic of women and really get them to turn out in the polls, and I expect that would continue on February 5. I think it's going to be very competitive.

—S.S.M.