Kuwait Times

Biden seeks black vote for boost in presidenti­al race

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If there’s one place US President Joe Biden can count on for support from black voters, it is Toliver’s Mane Event barbershop in the South Carolina state capital Columbia. A framed photo on the wall pictures the moment a smiling Biden visited the shop before his turnaround Democratic primary win in 2020.

“We think that he’s done a wonderful job,” says co-owner Christophe­r Toliver, 53, a viewpoint echoed by customers arriving for early morning appointmen­ts at this veritable institutio­n for the city’s black community. Not everyone agrees. A number of polls have shown that Biden is losing ground with the black voters who propelled him to the White House. Biden has made it clear that South Carolina’s first-in-the-nation Democratic primary on Saturday — which as the incumbent he is all but certain to win — is a proving ground to show he can still win over African Americans.

Biden’s visit to the barbershop four years ago was no coincidenc­e. Founded in 1976 by Christophe­r’s father Herbert, the clients who come in for a regular trim include the powerful black Democratic congressma­n Jim Clyburn. It was Clyburn whose endorsemen­t in 2020 saved Biden’s flailing campaign by securing him the support of black voters in South Carolina, and ultimately nationwide. Biden returned the favor by moving South Carolina to the front of the primary calendar for 2024.

‘Word not getting out’

And he has been attempting to recapture the 2020 magic, telling a largely black audience during one of his two South Carolina visits this year that “you’re the reason Donald Trump is a defeated former president.” But surveys suggest some black voters, especially the young, are frustrated by what they see as Biden’s failure to tackle priorities on the economy and on voter rights. Others are just not excited by a second dose of the 81-year-old. A New York Times/Siena poll in November found 71 percent of black voters in six battlegrou­nd states would back Biden — down drasticall­y from 91 percent in 2020 — and 22 percent would back Trump despite his racially charged rhetoric.

Reclining in a barbers chair as 78-year-old Herbert Toliver trims his hair, pastor Charles Jackson says the Biden campaign may not be spreading the message about his achievemen­ts. “It’s as if the word is not getting out as much as it should among the African American community,” said Jackson, senior pastor at Brookland Baptist Church, where Biden spoke during a trip last week. The Biden campaign is now throwing everything it has at South Carolina — despite the fact that it’s a Republican state no Democrat has won since Jimmy Carter in 1976. A marching band noisily heralded the arrival of Vice President Kamala Harris to a campaign event on Friday at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, one of hundreds of historical­ly black colleges in the United States.

“President Biden and I are counting on you to make your voices heard,” she said to cheers, adding that Trump had “stoked the fires of hate and bigotry and racism.” In January, Biden spoke at a church in Charleston where a white supremacis­t killer shot dead nine black parishione­rs.—AFP

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