Hillary Clinton has the support of 59 percent of South Carolina’s African-American Democrats, the poll finds. | Getty Poll: Clinton still up big in South Carolina

Hillary Clinton's national lead may be slipping, but she's holding onto a 22 percentage-point lead in South Carolina — largely due to her strong support among the state’s African-American Democrats — but Bernie Sanders has a small edge with the state’s whites.

The former secretary of state has the support of 53 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, with the Vermont senator far behind at 31 percent, according to a new Bloomberg Politics poll.


Clinton has the support of 59 percent of the state’s African-American Democrats, while Sanders has one-third of that (20 percent).

Sanders is ahead of Clinton 45 to 42 percent with whites and holds a much wider margin for whites under 45 — 67 percent to her 22 percent.

In possible good news for Clinton, 87 percent of those surveyed said it is time for a woman to be president. But 67 percent said they agree that having someone who describes himself as a "democratic socialist" in the White House would be OK.

Thirty-nine percent of Democratic primary voters surveyed said they could still be persuaded, though 60 percent have made up their mind.

The telephone survey of 403 likely Democratic primary voters in the state has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points and was conducted Feb. 13-17.

Clinton’s lead in the Bloomberg survey is similar to her advantage in the RealClearPolitics average of South Carolina polls, which has her 22 percentage points ahead, 58 percent to Sanders’ 36 percent.