ORANGEBURG, S.C.—Bernie Sanders has eight days to win the hearts of black voters in the Deep South. Before he can do that, he has to prove to them that he exists.

“I just heard about him a couple weeks ago,” said church deacon Harry Cheeseboro, 63, on his way to services Sunday morning in the South Carolina city of Orangeburg.

“I didn’t know a thing about him until now,” said grocery store manager Terrance Davis, 39, as he sat in a barbershop in Columbia.

“I don’t know much about Bernie,” said Millicent Middleton, 51, in her airport shuttle in North Charleston.

Sanders, a senator from America’s second-whitest state, has never before had to build a black following. If he doesn’t do it immediately, he likely can’t beat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. And he sure isn’t doing it yet.

South Carolina’s primary is Saturday. Sanders and Clinton are in a dead heat for its white voters. For many of its black voters, Clinton might as well be running unopposed.

Most of them first heard Sanders’s name in the past year, some of them in the past week. Even voters who know of his record say they have tuned him out. Their vote was secure the moment Clinton announced.

“I try not to listen too much to him,” said Mickey McCray, 54, in Orangeburg. “I think she knows the country, and she’s been in there for years. I like everything the woman stands for and she’s been fighting for.”

In three South Carolina polls released last week, Clinton led Sanders 73 to 19, 63 to 21 and 63 to 23 among African-Americans. While Sanders did better with blacks under the age of 30, there was no sign of the white-millennial Berniemania that gripped Iowa and New Hampshire.

Without such a groundswell, a dramatic race might turn fast into a rout. Black voters are half of the primary electorate in South Carolina. On Super Tuesday, March 1, they make up a hefty share of the vote in six southern states. Clinton’s smallest lead with blacks in those states: 40 points.

Sanders is scrambling to trim the gap. He is running a stirring ad featuring the daughter of Eric Garner, a black man killed by police. He is stumping with a former NAACP leader. And his campaign has played up his youthful civil rights activism.

But black Democratic elites have come out in force for Clinton. Sanders has not deviated much from his core message, which emphasizes income inequality over racial inequality. And it is not clear if there is anything he could say to trump two decades of fondness.

“I love Bill Clinton,” said Middleton. “Hillary has the best resume out of everybody. But more than anything else, I love that she’s got a great president at her side to be her confidante and her consultant.”

South Carolina chose Barack Obama over Clinton in 2008. Its black voters now see Clinton as the candidate who will protect his legacy. Some are put off by Sanders’s criticism of the first black president.

“I want Hillary to continue with the Obamacare. The way Bernie’s talking, he’s talking about — not dismantling it, but doing it differently. And I don’t agree with that,” said Kimberly Moore, 39, in Columbia.

Louis Robinson, sitting across from McCray at breakfast, offered an indication of how Sanders can connect. He likes Clinton, he said, but he is leaning Sanders for his proposal to reform the criminal justice system. Robinson, 39, served two years in prison for a drug-related felony.

“I’m a welder by trade,” he said, “and if he could do something, I could get a better job.”

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It is criminal justice where Clinton might be vulnerable, said Robert Smith, a San Francisco State University political science professor. Bill Clinton signed a harsh 1994 crime bill that caused an explosion in black imprisonment. But Sanders is poorly positioned to exploit the issue. He voted for the bill as a Vermont congressman.

“To many of us who have studied Clinton and his record very carefully, the kind of affection that blacks have for him and his wife is not earned,” Smith said. “He governed in a very, very Reagan-like way on issues of concern to blacks. I don’t think most black, ordinary voters are aware of that.”

He added: “I don’t think really very much can be done at this point.”

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