Biden hoping to be comeback kid
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Joe Biden is hoping for a win in Saturday’s firstin-the-South primary, just weeks after his third presidential campaign limped out of New Hampshire badly wounded and close to broke.
The former vice president’s flagging campaign is looking for momentum that could propel him toward a strong showing in the Super Tuesday slate of 14 states next week. Rivals Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg have dwarfed him in organization and spending, and early voting had begun in many states, including delegate-rich California and Texas, before Biden’s campaign could reestablish its footing.
In Biden’s ideal scenario, a South Carolina rebound would blunt the momentum of Sanders, the progressive favorite and national delegate leader who led voting in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, while gutting the case for Bloomberg, a billionaire whose late entry to the race last fall was almost entirely pegged on the idea that Biden would collapse after losing Iowa and New Hampshire.
“If you send me out of South Carolina with a victory, there will be no stopping us,” Biden declared earlier this week, after getting the coveted endorsement of House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking African American on Capitol Hill and the most influential Democrat in
South Carolina.
“We will win the nomination,” Biden continued. “We will win the presidency. And most importantly, we will end the fear that so many people in this country have of a second term for Donald Trump.”
If he’s right, it would validate the argument Biden laid out from the start: that he, a 77-year-old former vice president with deep ties across the party, was the only candidate positioned to build a coalition across a racially, ethnically and ideologically diverse party — and that such a path didn’t require winning in overwhelmingly white Iowa or Nevada.
By the end of Super Tuesday, about 40% of Democrats’ convention delegates will have been awarded. More than 600 of the 1,991 required for nomination are up in California and Texas alone.
Both the Biden campaign and a Biden-backing super PAC, Unite the County, have lagged their counterparts in fundraising and spending, even with Biden boasting that he managed his singleday best $1.2 million haul this week after a solid debate performance Tuesday.
A PAC aligned with Elizabeth Warren plans to spend $9 million on Super Tuesday ads, even as the senator faces an uphill battle to win any statewide races other than Massachusetts.