The defection of Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a leader of the civil rights movement, may be just the beginning of black supporters of Hillary Clinton switching their support to Barack Obama. In fact, a black state lawmaker and superdelegate from Texas also announced yesterday that she would no longer support Clinton.

And as Mahtesian and Cullen write in the Politico, the pressure on black officials to switch may increase as they realize not supporting Obama could be detrimental to their own political careers. Obama has regularly won large majorities of the black vote throughout the primary process, so many black pols who support Clinton not only are not supporting a black politician with a realistic chance of winning the presidency, they are supporting someone whom a majority of their constituents do not support. Always a risky move.

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