The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Biden earns first victory by taking South Carolina
Former vice president gains momentum with Super Tuesday next.
CHARLESTON, S.C.— Joe Biden might have lost his front-runner status nationally, but it never left him in South Carolina.
The former vice president revived his struggling campaign with a victory in the first-in-the-South primary Saturday, giving his White House bid new momentum as he and his mainstream allies race to slow Bernie Sand
ers in a sweep of states that will cast ballots Tuesday.
Biden staked his campaign on the Palmetto State, which he’s called both his “firewall” and his “launching pad” after a string of defeats in the first three early-voting states. He was projected to land such a commanding win that national networks called his victory as soon as the polls closed at 7 p.m.
Though South Carolina is the fourth state on the Democratic nominating calendar, it’s the first where African Americans make up a majority of the vote. With an electorate that mirrors Geor-
gia’s Democratic voting bloc, the results also provide clues about how the state will vote in its March 24 primary.
Biden soared to victory on a wave of support from black voters, overcoming both Sanders and billionaire Tom Steyer, a long-shot candidate who far outspent his rivals in the state. It also increased the pressure on two moderate rivals, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, to leave the race after struggling again to win nonwhite voters.
“I’m very optimistic,” Biden told reporters Saturday after visiting a polling site in Greenville. “I’m optimistic not just about today, I’m optimistic about the whole process.”
The momentum from Biden’s victory might not last long. In three days, voters in 14 Super Tuesday states cast ballots in a wave of votes that could give Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, an unassailable edge in the delegate count. His rise has terrified some party leaders who worry that Sanders’ liberal ideology makes him a sitting duck in November.
Sanders has already shifted his gaze to those contests, holding a rally Saturday that attracted thousands of voters in Boston where he declared the “establishment is getting very nervous” about his front-runner status.
Other contenders have also split time in those larger states, including Klobuchar and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is courting more liberal voters.
Each of them, along with Buttigieg, have promised to continue their campaigns no matter how poorly they wound up on Saturday, intent on showing they can build a political coalition formidable enough to defeat President Donald Trump.
However the final vote turns out in South Carolina, a new dynamic awaits the contenders Tuesday when former New York Mayor Mike
Bloomberg joins the fray after skipping the first four nominating contests.
The billionaire has set new spending records on TV ads and hired droves of staffers in nearly every state as he jockeys with Biden and other rivals to emerge as the mainstream favorite.
A comeback moment
Struggling to raise cash and winless in his first three races, Biden would have likely been forced to bow out of the race had he lost South Carolina. So important was the state that he decamped to Columbia, the capital city, even as voters in New Hampshire were still casting ballots earlier this month.
And he unequivocally vowed to win the state at a debate last week in Charleston, focusing his campaign apparatus here as his rivals scattered across the Super Tuesday states.
Biden’s campaign hopes a decisive victory here will have the same effect it did for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who both were cemented as the top choice of black voters after their Palmetto State performances. He’s long pinned his campaign on appealing to black voters, the party’s most reliable bloc of supporters.
Still, even the most overwhelming of victories might not change the trajectory of the race, since early voting is already underway in many of the Super Tuesday states. Those states combine for more than 600 of the 1,991 delegates required for the nomination.
At campaign stops around the state, Biden took aim at Sanders’ vow for political upheaval, saying that voters demand progress — not “a revolution like some folks are talking about.”
He also issued frequent reminders of his close ties to Obama and the support of U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, the state’s most sought-after Democratic endorsement. Exit polls showed nearly half of Democratic voters rated the veteran congressman’s endorsement as “important” to them.
Others said they were drawn to Biden because they feared Sanders’ platform would make it impossible to defeat Trump, who at a Friday rally in North Charleston suggested that his Republican voters cast ballots for the Vermont senator.
“I don’t want Bernie Sanders to win; I don’t believe in socialism,” said I. Ladson of Goose Creek. “Besides, he can’t win in a national election.”
‘Fresh air’
Biden held off a late surge from Steyer, who had sought to win over undecided voters torn between the top contenders. Among them was Terry Scipio, who attended a Summerville event for Steyer and was impressed by the candidate after seeing him in countless TV ads.
“I’m looking for someone who is not your everyday politician,” Scipio said. “A breath of fresh air in Washington.”
Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund executive, had put a special emphasis on South Carolina, drowning the airwaves with more than $19 million in TV ads and more paid staffers in the state than any other contender. And he focused his message on his business experience and his pitch that he’s more electable than any other rival.
That platform helped win over Steven Davis, a Columbia resident who called Steyer’s policies logical, achievable and authentic.
“He doesn’t seem like he’s trying to get a black vote,” Davis said. “He is trying to get an honest vote.”
Some Republicans frustrated by Trump were drawn to the Democratic field, too. Martin Arant of Lexington usually votes for Republicans and said he’s likely to support Trump in November.
But he said he was particularly intrigued by Warren, who didn’t make the state a priority.
“I would love to see Elizabeth Warren be the top dog and fight Trump,” he said. “I think she is down-to-earth, a good lady. It would make me think really hard about who to vote for.”
After a neck-and-neck finish in Iowa and victories in New Hampshire and Nevada, Sanders’ camp had hoped for a knockout blow with an upset victory earlier in the week. But as polls showed Biden’s lead widening, his advisers hoped to narrow the former vice president’s margins and prove that Sanders can win in a state where he was steamrolled in 2016.
His campaign never fully recovered from that humbling defeat four years ago, fueled by black voters who overwhelmingly backed Hillary Clinton. This time, Sanders placed a special emphasis on courting voters of color while also maintaining his grip on the core of liberal voters who backed him in 2016.
“He’s just never changed his values; he’s been consistent,” said Casper Cilia, who attended a Columbia rally on Friday. “He cares about marginalized people. He cares about veterans. He cares about poor people.”