CHARLESTON, S.C. — South Carolina is no longer former Vice President Joe Biden’s firewall. Now, it’s his launch pad or, as he told a group of College of Charleston students this week, the place where the race for the presidency “all starts.”
Never mind his dismal finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, or his second-place landing last week in Nevada’s caucus. Once the unquestioned front-runner, Biden is now staking his campaign for the White House on a first-place finish Saturday in South Carolina.
If there ever was a firewall here, it’s smoldering. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is gaining on Biden in recent Palmetto State polls and building larger leads in the Super Tuesday states that cast ballots next week. A string of victories then could give him an unassailable delegate lead.
Sanders’ supporters, too, sense the ground is shifting, particularly among African American voters. Kelvin Maull hardly gave Sanders a second look four years ago, when black voters like him helped fuel Hillary Clinton’s resounding victory. Now he feels like Biden is a spent force.
“I voted for Hillary four years ago because I thought she had the best chance to win,” Maull said. “But Biden has lost his way. I just don’t hear the same sort of urgency from him. And this is the right moment for Bernie’s platform — the country needs to be more accommodating to its citizens.”
Adding to Biden’s problems here is Tom Steyer, a billionaire who largely abandoned the other early-voting states to focus on South Carolina. He’s hired more than 80 full-time staffers here and blanketed the airwaves with ads, and polls show he’s threatening Biden’s support among black voters.
Still, if Biden can pull out a victory — far from the certainty it once was — it can upend the race by casting doubt on Sanders’ status as front-runner and increasing the pressure on other mainstream rivals to abandon the race.
It will also put him in stronger position on Super Tuesday, when former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg joins the fray. The billionaire skipped the early-voting contests to bank his campaign on more populous states that vote next month, including Georgia’s March 24 primary.
Sensing a do-or-die moment, Biden was more assertive at Tuesday’s debate in Charleston, taking on Sanders, Steyer and even the debate’s organizers.
“Why am I stopping?” he appealed to the moderators at one point. “No one else stops.”
The performance may have helped Biden score a victory Wednesday, when he won the endorsement of U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, the House majority whip and South Carolina’s most powerful Democrat.
‘I will win’
After Sanders’ dominating victory in the Nevada caucus, the attacks on the Vermont senator sharpened. Biden accused him of being disloyal to former President Barack Obama, and stories surfaced documenting how Sanders considered a primary challenge to the incumbent in 2012.
A Sanders upset victory would be an epic reversal. His 2016 campaign never fully recovered from his defeat in South Carolina, when he lost to Clinton by a 3-1 margin. Exit polls showed African American voters made up nearly two-thirds of the primary vote — and about 86% of black voters backed Clinton.
A few days later, Sanders barely cracked one-quarter of the vote in Georgia’s primary. It was a preview of what was to come: Clinton’s support across the South, where black voters make up the bulk of the Democratic electorate, helped her build an impenetrable delegate lead and win the nomination.
South Carolina could again be a window to Georgia’s vote. Unlike the overwhelmingly white contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina’s majority-black Democratic voting bloc is far more representative of the nation — and roughly mirrors Georgia’s electorate.
In both states, African Americans make up about 60% of the Democratic voting bloc. Only once since 1988 have Democrats in the two states backed opposing candidates — in 2004, when John Edwards won the South Carolina vote and John Kerry topped the Georgia primary.
This time around, Sanders has tried to cultivate support from voters of color earlier, including visits over the summer to a black youth church convention in Atlanta and to Morehouse College in November to unveil a $5 billion plan to boost historically black colleges and universities.
And he’s now trying to deliver a knockout blow to Biden by leveraging a message of social justice and economic equality that’s been a staple of Sanders’ platform for decades as he tries to appeal to voters energized by his vision.
His backers have reason to be enthused. After strong finishes in majority-white Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders dominated Nevada’s caucuses by building a coalition of Latino voters and working-class liberals. He also earned about 27% of the black vote in Nevada, according to entrance polls, compared with Biden’s 39%.
That’s backed Biden into a corner. In stops across South Carolina, he’s focused on his ties to Obama — he slipped and said “when we were president” — and made the charged accusation that Sanders wasn’t loyal to the former president. Biden also pledged a war against gun manufacturers: “I’m going to take you down.”
Though Biden still draws large crowds, the atmosphere at some rallies is subdued. Justin Lederman, a College of Charleston student, thought Biden’s message was “very establishment-heavy” and left a rally this week convinced of one thing.
“The event, if anything, confirmed I will not be voting for Biden,” he said.
Dotted in the crowd were a few dozen African American voters, some who have been with Biden’s campaign from the start. Hattie Horry felt compelled to offer a message to wavering Biden backers: Don’t count him out.
“He’s saying exactly what I want to hear. He’s doing enough to win here. Trust the polls – they’re accurate,” Horry said. “He’s been doing what he has to do.”
Biden would certainly agree. Asked at Tuesday’s debate in Charleston whether he’d abandon the race if he failed to win the state, he responded with a curt answer.
“I will win South Carolina.”
WHAT’S NEXT
The next week could be crucial in selecting the Democratic nominee who will face President Donald Trump in November.
On Saturday, voters in South Carolina will go to the polls.
Two days later, early voting will begin in Georgia for its presidential preference primary on March 24.
The day after that will be Super Tuesday, when the choice of candidates will fall to voters in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. Democrats Abroad will also vote.
SOUTH CAROLINA VS. GEORGIA
Population
South Carolina — 5,148,714
Georgia — 10,617,423
Percent change since April 2010
South Carolina — 11.3%
Georgia — 9.6%
U.S. — 6.3%
Residents 65 and older
South Carolina — 17.7%
Georgia — 13.9%
U.S. — 16.0%
Race and Hispanic origin
White, not Hispanic or Latino
South Carolina — 63.7%
Georgia — 52.4%
U.S. — 60.4%
Black or African American
South Carolina — 27.1%
Georgia — 32.4%
U.S. — 13.4%
Hispanic or Latino
South Carolina — 5.8%
Georgia — 9.8%
U.S. — 18.3%
Persons without health insurance
South Carolina — 12.7%
Georgia — 15.7%
U.S. — 10.0%
Median household income
South Carolina — $51,015
Georgia — $55,679
U.S. — $60,293
Persons in poverty
South Carolina — 15.3%
Georgia — 14.3%
U.S. — 11.8%
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau
About the Author
