Biden cruises to South Carolina Democratic primary win

COLUMBIA, South Carolina - United States President Joe Biden on Feb 3 won the South Carolina Democratic primary – the first officially sanctioned race of the party’s nominating season – with early returns showing him dominating two other candidates, according to Edison Research projections.

While Mr Biden, 81, faced little opposition, the vote was being closely watched amid concerns about his popularity, especially among black voters.

Edison Research predicted a Biden win soon after polls closed at 7pm on Feb 3, and his margin of victory held steady as the night wore on.

With 93.3 per cent of precincts reporting, he had won 116,266 votes, or 96.4 per cent out of what has been tallied so far, way ahead of his two main challengers, US Representative Dean Phillips and best-selling self-help author Marianne Williamson.

But turnout failed to exceed expectations. Democratic officials had expected somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 total votes, following a county-by-county tour of the Southern state aimed at exciting voters and multiple events featuring Mr Biden or Vice-President Kamala Harris.

In a victory statement, the Biden campaign said: “In 2020, it was the voters of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and set us on the path to winning the presidency.

“Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again, and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the presidency again – and making Donald Trump a loser – again.”

Four years ago, it was South Carolina’s black vote in the state’s primary that helped ignite Mr Biden’s campaign and ultimately propelled him to the White House.

Mr Biden, an unpopular incumbent who faces little competition for his party’s nomination in subsequent state primaries leading up to the Nov 5 US election,

had hoped for an overwhelming victory in South Carolina.

Besides campaign fears that South Carolina’s heavily black electorate might not be energised this time around, there also were doubts about his age and concerns about high consumer prices and security along the US-Mexico border.

Former president Donald Trump, 77, is the front runner for the Republican nomination to challenge Mr Biden in the presidential election.

South Carolina has not backed a Democrat for president in the election since 1976. But because black people make up more than half of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina, it presented an important test of Mr Biden’s appeal with a voting base that typically supports Democrats nine-to-one in presidential races.

Some South Carolina voters were lukewarm about Mr Biden’s re-election bid.

“Sometimes I wonder, is his presence enough because you don’t see him a lot, you don’t hear him a lot,” said Mr Martin Orr, 52, a school administrator from McConnells, South Carolina, speaking about Mr Biden, whom he planned to support in the election.

“Is it quiet because of his age or his physical condition, or what’s going on? I think that’s what a lot of people are concerned about right now.”

Echoes of 2020

Although there are dozens of nominating contests ahead, Mr Biden has already moved into election mode, attacking Trump in a series of speeches.

“There’s a lot at stake here, folks,” Mr Biden told campaign staff in Wilmington, Delaware, on Feb 3.

Trump is heavily favoured to get his party’s nomination after wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two Republican contests in the state-by-state battle. South Carolina hosts the next major Republican presidential nominating battle, on Feb 24.

Mr Biden reordered the Democratic calendar to make South Carolina the first nominating contest, ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire, in a move that simultaneously increased the voice of black voters and all but shut out any potential competition for the nomination.

In 2020, he garnered 49 per cent of the 539,263 votes cast in South Carolina’s seven-person Democratic primary race. Democrats in the state expected him to capture a larger share of a smaller electorate this time against Mr Phillips and Ms Williamson.

In New Hampshire, where Mr Biden was not on the ballot in January, he captured 64 per cent of the primary vote, thanks to a write-in campaign.

In a recent speech to state Democrats, Mr Phillips said he expected 95 per cent of the state will go for Mr Biden in the primary. But Mr Phillips said he still has a role to play.

“If you want to have a first-in-the-nation primary, you need at least two candidates on the ballot, and I’m happy to be that other guy,” the congressman said. REUTERS