Hillary Clinton's Support Among Nonwhite Voters Has Collapsed

On February 27th, Hillary Clinton led Bernie Sanders among African-American voters by 52 points.

By March 26th, she led Sanders among African-Americans by just nine points.

And today, Public Policy Polling, a widely respected polling organization, released a poll showing that Sanders leads Clinton among African-American voters in Wisconsin by 11 points.

It's all part of a dramatic national trend that has seen Clinton's support among nonwhite voters dwindle to well under a third of what it was just a month ago -- not nearly enough support to carry her, as it did throughout the Deep South, to future electoral victories in the Midwest and Northeast.

So no, it's not a coincidence that, in the 18 state primary elections since March 1st, Bernie Sanders has won on Election Day in 12 of them.

(That's right: Bernie won among live and provisional ballots in Arizona, Illinois, and Missouri.)

Of Clinton's five post-March 1st Election Day wins, four (Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and North Carolina) were in the South, and were made possible by a level of support among nonwhite voters that Clinton no longer enjoys. Indeed, this coalition was already collapsing when Clinton won in Florida and North Carolina on March 15th. At the polls in North Carolina on Election Day, Clinton won just 52 percent to 48 percent, including the tens of thousands of provisional ballots cast (which, still being counted, have gone, as expected, 57 percent for Senator Sanders). In Florida, the 36-point edge Clinton held in the first three weeks of early voting (February 15th to March 7th) dwindled to a 13.4-point edge among those who made their decision regarding who to vote for from March 8th to March 15th.

In short, the Clinton campaign is in the midst of an historic collapse -- much of it due to the unraveling of support for Clinton among nonwhite voters -- and the national media has yet to take any notice.

Clinton's 48-point lead in New York less than two weeks ago is now just a 12-point lead, according to the latest Quinnipiac Poll. That poll shows Sanders with approximately 300 percent more support among African-American voters in New York than he had in Mississippi earlier this month.

Meanwhile, in the only poll taken in Indiana, Sanders is said to be beating Clinton handily.

Sanders is leading by 8 points in West Virginia.

And the only polling done so far in Kentucky -- among nearly 1,000 students at the University of Kentucky -- has Sanders up on Clinton there by more than 70 points.

But what the latest Reuters polling underscores is that even Clinton's support in the South has collapsed.

Between February 27th and March 26th, Clinton's lead among Southerners -- the group whose primary votes (and thus delegates) comprise the entirety of her 228-delegate lead over Bernie Sanders -- decreased from 15 points to just 6. Given the percentage of Southern Democrats who are African-American, even without cross-tabs available there is reason to believe Clinton's declining numbers among nonwhite voters are partially responsible for this decline. Certainly, it was the strength of Clinton's support among this polling demographic that assured Clinton of massive delegate hauls in nearly every Southern state: according to CNN exit polling, on March 1st black voters in Mississippi favored Clinton by 77 points, in Georgia by 71 points, in Virginia by 68 points, in Texas by 68 points, in Tennessee by 79 points, in Arkansas by 66 points, and in Alabama by a whopping 85 points.