Story highlights The Vermont senator is playing catch-up to Hillary Clinton in South Carolina

A recent poll showed Clinton with 71% percent support compared to Sanders' 15%

Orangeburg, South Carolina (CNN) It was a tough sell for a political candidate: rainy, chilly and the distraction of Saturday college football games. But Elizabeth Jones and her husband, Robert, drove through the dark weekend evening to see Bernie Sanders at the South Carolina State University auditorium.

"Our daughter is madly crazy about Bernie Sanders and she said, 'Mom you've gotta go,'" Jones said. "She really loves him, for what he stands for. We came here to see ourselves."

The Vermont senator is playing catch-up to Hillary Clinton in South Carolina, and it's an uphill battle with fewer than a 100 days from South Carolina's Democratic primary. Sanders is using a jam-packed, three-day stop in the Palmetto State to try to bolster support among African-American voters, a demographic that he's losing sharply to Hillary Clinton.

Winthrop University poll out on November 4 showed that an overwhelming majority of South Carolina Democratic primary voters back Clinton: 71% to Sanders' 15% support. Clinton's support is even stronger in the African-American community, where she sweeps with 80% support among likely voters.

On the trail, Sanders urges that "black lives matter," and in South Carolina so do black votes.

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