It was hardly what you would call a knife-edge result. No one was pulling a late night at the White House or Democrat headquarters, waiting anxiously for the outcome in South Carolina. That the state would hand Joe Biden his first primary victory on Saturday was a given. The only question was by how much he would win.
“Landslide” seems inadequate in the circumstances. Biden took 96.2% of the vote, with his challengers (yes, they do exist), Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips scrabbling for the rest.
Biden had put a lot of effort into winning a resounding victory in South Carolina. He ensured the party rearranged the primary timetable so South Carolina would vote first, and he has paid more visits than might be thought usual for a president with mounting demands on him at home and abroad.
Come what may, Biden was not going to take supporters in the Palmetto state, named after the tropical trees that flourish throughout the southern US, for granted.
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It was voters in South Carolina who came to his aid in the 2020 race for the nomination, handing him a solid victory after defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire. Biden had proven he could win the backing of a constituency that was to prove crucial in the battle against Donald Trump - black voters - and has been keen to show he can do so again.
Thanking supporters for his victory this time, Biden said: “In 2020, it was the voters of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and set us on the path to winning the presidency. Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the presidency again – and making Donald Trump a loser – again.”
Biden needs every voter he won over in 2020 to return to the fold, and then some. Yet his approval ratings are still bumping along the bottom despite a rosier economic outlook. Younger voters are deserting him over the conflict in Gaza, while among black voters a more complex picture is taking shape. In 2020, 92% of black voters nationally backed Biden. A poll by the New York Times and Sienna College of six key states found that support had fallen to 71%.
It remains a huge margin in favour of Mr Biden, but what worries Democrats is where those votes are going and why. That, rather than the result in South Carolina, is what keeps Democrat chiefs awake at night.
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What is cutting through with black voters is what is cutting through in general - worries about the cost of living and illegal migration. And while there are fears that black voters are turning towards Trump, the more alarming prospect is that they will stay home on polling day.
The number of migrants crossing the US southern border in December reached a record 302,000. Biden is particularly susceptible on this issue to a candidate who built his entire run for the presidency on a promise of building a wall to keep migrants out. If anything, Donald Trump’s rhetoric on migration has become more extreme, and he has acquired supporters only too keen to implement the kind of harsh measures he advocated.
The most prominent of these has been Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas. Among his controversial moves has been ordering the National Guard to run razor wire along a section of the border with Mexico. He, in turn, has won the backing of other Republican governors who are seeing more migrants in their cities, some of them making it to other places on their own, others “bussed in” as a stunt. Migrant camps spring up in parks and streets where they have not been seen before in such numbers, and local authorities complain about the strain on their budgets.
It is a tense, ugly situation, one that will only become more fraught as Trump strolls towards the Republican nomination. The closer he gets to the White House, the more migrants will feel it is now or never to get across. Biden, in turn, is toughening his stance on migration in response to what’s happening at the southern border, which hasn’t gone down well with sections of his own party.
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Delegate votes in the bag for Biden, the next date in the diary for South Carolina is February 24, when the Republican presidential primary will take place. The polling aggregate website 538 has support for Trump running at more than 60%, some 30 points ahead of his only remaining rival, Nikki Haley.
Despite her numbers, Haley seems to be relishing the fight against Trump. Having questioned Biden’s fitness for office on the grounds of his age, she is honing her attack on Trump for the same reason, accusing him of being confused over whether she was on the ballot in Indiana. A few weeks ago he appeared to mix Haley up with Nancy Pelosi.
In the last few days she has ramped up demands for Trump to face her in a debate, something he has refused to do with any of his rivals for the Republican nomination. There is no reason for him to change that stance. The risk is that if he did there could be a repeat of that watch-through-the-fingers clash with Hillary Clinton when he appeared to follow her across the debate stage.
Haley has said she will stay in the race till Super Tuesday on March 5 and possibly even beyond, though she would say that, wouldn’t she?
“As long as I keep growing per state, I am in this race,” she told an interviewer. “I have every intention of going to Super Tuesday. Through Super Tuesday we’re going to keep on going and see where this gets us. That’s what we know we’re going to do right now. I take it one state at a time. I don’t think too far ahead.”
Thinking ahead is precisely what she is doing in many eyes - all the way to another run in 2028. What’s that, too soon?
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