Biden wins the South Carolina victory he wanted

In a stunning turn of events, former Vice President Joe Biden emerged victorious in the South Carolina Democratic primary. This win was crucial for his campaign, as it solidified his position as a strong contender for the party's nomination. Biden's victory can be attributed to several key factors.

Firstly, Biden's long-standing ties with the African American community played a significant role in his success. South Carolina has a large African American population, and they turned out in droves to support him. Biden's close relationship with former President Barack Obama also resonated with many voters who saw him as a continuation of Obama's legacy.

The Associated Press declared Biden the winner at 7:23 p.m. based on an analysis of initial vote results showing him with a decisive lead in key locations throughout the state. His only challengers on the ballot, U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota and self-help author Marianne Williamson, trailed far behind.

Biden is far surpassing the 49 percent of the vote he received in the 2020 primary against a highly competitive field that included U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg of Indiana and billionaire Tom Steyer, who poured millions of dollars into the state and dropped out after his third-place finish. South Carolina was Biden’s first victory that year, after placing fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire and a distant second in Nevada.

Biden, who was in Los Angeles for a fundraising event Saturday evening when his win was projected, said in a statement that South Carolina put him on a path toward victory.

“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,” he said. “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.”

Polls have shown Biden has been lagging in approval ratings with younger voters and nonwhite voters, so analysts will be paying close attention to turnout as a signal of whether Biden's message is resonating.

But Terrance Woodbury of HIT Strategies, a group that researches Black voter attitudes, cautioned against overanalyzing the results of this primary — a contest that likely will mainly attract party faithful, rather than the broader group of Black voters that Biden needs to win in battleground states like Georgia and North Carolina.

"The voters that Democrats need to mobilize in the general election aren't participating in the primary election," Woodbury told NPR.

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 Sarah H

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