South Carolina primary a Biden cakewalk, potentially reshaping the Democratic race
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Former vice president Joe Biden decisively won the South Carolina primary Saturday, as the first Southern test of the nominating process dealt a blow to the surging candidacy of Sen. Bernie
Sanders and held the potential to reshape the Democratic race.
The win could pump new life into Biden’s struggling campaign, as he becomes the first candidate to score a clear-cut victory against Sanders this year, boosting his efforts to become the major alternative to
Sanders. Still, Sanders, I-Vt., is polling strongly in several of the Super Tuesday states that vote this week, and it could yet prove difficult for any of his competitors to catch up.
At a minimum, Democrats now face the most unsettled contest in decades, with at least five candidates, perhaps seven, showing a potential to win delegates after the winnowing process of the first four primary states. The Democratic race goes national Tuesday, when 14 states and one territory will vote to award 34 percent of the convention delegates.
What’s not clear is whether Biden’s triumph in a state supporters have long called his “firewall,” where African-American voters had a significant say for the first time, will provide only a momentary lift, result in a two-person race between Biden and Sanders – or result in a long slog to the convention.
Still, it was a major win for a figure who has been in public life for 45 years, and his first primary victory in his three presidential runs. Biden cast the win as the first of many number of dominoes that will now fall his way.
“The full comeback starts in South Carolina and then comes here on Tuesday,” Biden told a crowd of nearly 1,000 people packed into the gym
of St. Augustine in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday, before the polls closed. “We’re going to win South Carolina, and the next stop is North Carolina. And then it’s a straight path to the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States.”
Cheers went up at 7 p.m. at a Biden election-night rally in Columbia when MSNBC called the race, and again at 7:04, when the channel was switched to CNN.
The Biden campaign hopes to use Saturday’s win to consolidate support from many of his rivals, hoping that several drop out, and plans a series of high-profile endorsements over the coming days from party leaders. Nearly half of South Carolina voters said Rep. James Clyburn’s, D-S.C., final-week endorsement of Biden was an important factor in their vote, according to preliminary exit poll results from Edison Research.
For all the candidates but Sanders, a further winnowing of the field is crucial to winning the nomination. Sanders is broadly expected to come out of Tuesday with a substantial delegate lead in the race, anchored in his huge polling advantage in California. Under party rules, such leads can be difficult to overcome as the race moves on.
Biden’s victory appeared on track to potentially give him a symbolic victory over Sanders, who has not yet been able to win more than 34 percent of the vote in any of the first three states, de
spite winning the initial popular vote each time. Under party rules, nominees need to secure more than 50 percent of delegates to win the nomination at the convention in Milwaukee in July.
But the continued viability of so many candidates has increased the likelihood that no candidate will be able to secure such a victory with initial pledged delegates alone, setting up the potential for either a brokered convention or a pre-convention horse trading of delegates by the candidates to form a unity ticket.
Complicating the hunt for the nomination is former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars advertising his candidacy to the Super Tuesday states, after deciding not to compete in the first four contests.
Although his rise in polls had slowed since his first debate performance, Bloomberg still appears positioned to win delegates in many early states, as he continues to swamp his rivals in spending.
His campaign announced Saturday that he will buy three minutes of commercial airtime nationally at 8:30 p.m. Sunday night to present his vision for managing the current coronavirus outbreak, which claimed its first American life this past week in Washington state.
After the outcome became clear, President Donald Trump tweeted, “Sleepy Joe Biden’s victory in the South Carolina Democratic prima
ry should be the end of Mini Mike Bloomberg’s Joke of a campaign.”
Biden’s support among black voters, who made up most of the electorate in South Carolina, appeared ready to lift a campaign that has struggled to find its footing for more than a year. Biden, a national polling leader in 2019, finished in fourth place in Iowa, fifth place in New Hampshire and second place in Nevada.
African-American voters are a crucial pillar of the Democratic coalition, and Biden, along with other Sanders critics, have argued that it will be hard for the Democratic nominee to defeat Trump if he does not have enthusiastic support from the black community. Sanders has replied that he alone among the Democratic contenders has shown the ability to electrify voters and draw big crowds from a broad portion of the electorate.
Before polls closed, Clyburn, who has promised to campaign for Biden in North Carolina next, voiced strong criticism of the operation he was joining.
“If we are successful tonight in this campaign, if he has a relaunch,” he told CNN, “I think we will have to sit down and get serious about how we retool this campaign, how we retool the fundraising, how we do the [Get Out The Vote]. And at that point in time, many of us around the country will be able to join with him and help him get it right.”