Axelrod: Among African-American Voters, Hillary’s ‘Firewall Is Buckling a Little Bit,’ ‘Trust and Honesty’ ‘Dogging Her’

CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Senior Advisor to President Obama David Axelrod said that Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “firewall is buckling a little bit” among African-American voters and mentioned her honesty and trustworthiness numbers as a possible reason for this during CNN’s coverage of Tuesday’s primaries.

Axelrod said, while commenting on the Democratic numbers in Michigan, “Well, we said earlier that the key was can he [Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)] cut into her African-American support, and can he build on the strong support he’s got in working class white communities? And looking inside these numbers, that appears to be what’s happening. She’s not running the same kind of numbers in the African-American community that she has in some of these Southern states, which have been in the 80s, in some states, even beyond that. It seems still formidable, but more modest. So, that’s — her firewall is buckling a little bit.”

He added that while “it’s hard to say” why this is happening, “[T]rust and honesty, these are the issues that have been dogging her throughout.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett