Here in South Carolina, Clinton finally appears poised for a big win—one that could propel her all the way to the nomination—thanks to the very voting bloc that killed her candidacy eight years ago. Polls show her ahead in the state, where a majority of Democratic primary voters are African American, by margins of 20 points or more.

It is a remarkable turnabout for Clinton, who was coming off wins in New Hampshire and Nevada in 2008 when the black voters of South Carolina sharply turned their backs on her. Their rejection sealed her fate and added a bitter epilogue to the Clintons’ complicated lifelong relationship with the black community. Barack Obama won the state by 29 points, and the black voters of South Carolina put him on the path to the nomination.

In the final days before Saturday’s primary, Clinton’s rival, Bernie Sanders, has seen the writing on the wall. He’s spent most of the week elsewhere, but he can hardly be said to have ceded the state from the outset: Sanders outspent Clinton in television ads and has more than 200 paid staff in South Carolina. He has tried mightily to win here—it just hasn’t worked. As a result, this state, and the black vote, may prove as fatal to his candidacy as they did to Clinton’s in 2008.

The vote here also has far-reaching implications for the future of the Democratic Party, which increasingly relies on minority voters to win national elections. In the era of America’s first black president, black voters are the Democrats’ heart, soul, and bellwether, and Clinton’s general-election hopes will hinge on her ability to convince them she is Obama’s heir.

It was head-spinning to talk to the voters here, most of whom insisted they’d never disliked Clinton, only liked Obama better. The same arguments that fell on deaf ears eight years ago—that she was the more experienced, pragmatic, substantive, and electable candidate, and that her husband’s administration was a good time for America—were the ones they reached for now. “I like her agenda. I feel she’s fighting for us,” Eleanor Goss, a 70-year-old retired teacher, told me. “During Bill Clinton’s terms in office, things were very good for African Americans. And I feel she has the best chance to win.”

With Sanders elsewhere, Clinton whirled across South Carolina, making multiple stops in the state on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and deploying Bill and Chelsea Clinton to other corners of the state. The other theme that emerged, among the dozens of black voters I spoke to at Clinton’s events on Wednesday and Thursday, was a sense of familiarity: They’d heard of Sanders and heard his ads, but didn’t feel they knew him personally. “I support Hillary because she has a long track record of being in the struggle for economic and social justice,” said Ethel Wells, an 81-year-old retired social-services worker.