Biden wins in S.C.’s Democratic primary
By Will Weissert and Meg Kinnard
COLUMBIA, S.C. — President Joe Biden has won South Carolina’s Democratic primary, notching an overwhelming 2024 victory in the state that vaulted him to the White House four years ago.
Biden on Saturday defeated the other long-shot Democrats on South Carolina’s ballot, including Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and
The president’s campaign had invested heavily in driving up turnout for Biden, aiming to testdrive efforts to mobilize Black voters, who are a key part of the Democratic vote in South Carolina and central to Biden’s strategy for victory in November.
Biden’s win comes in a state that he and other party leaders had recommended lead off the party’s 2024 primary calendar. In author Marianne
Williamson. picking South Carolina, they cited the state’s far more racially diverse population compared to the traditional first-in-the-nation states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are overwhelmingly white.
In defiance of the Democratic National Committee, New Hampshire held a leadoff primary last month anyway. But without the president’s or the national party’s backing and no delegates officially at stake, the contest was nonbinding. Biden still won New Hampshire by a sizable margin after supporters mounted a writein campaign on his behalf.
South Carolina, where Biden has long held deep relationships with supporters and donors, also played a pivotal role in his 2020 campaign, where a big win helped revive a flagging effort in other early-voting states and propelled him to the nomination.
Biden’s reelection campaign has said it was using the state’s primary to test strategies and messages that best motivate Black voters to the polls for the November general election. Though the state is solidly Republican, South Carolina’s diverse primary voters mirror the Democratic coalition that Biden must hold together to win another term.
From South Carolina, the Democratic nominating calendar moves to Nevada, which holds its primary on Tuesday, and then to Michigan on Feb. 27.