Biden returns to South Carolina to show his determination to win back Black voters in 2024
COLUMBIA, S.C. — COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Joe Biden doesn’t have to worry about his prospects in South Carolina’s Democratic primary next week. He has that locked up.
He also knows that he is unlikely to win the definitively red state in November. The country hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1976.
Still, he’s spending this weekend in the state, intent on driving home two messages: He’s loyal to the state that saved his 2020 campaign, and he’s determined to win back Black voters here and elsewhere who lost out last year. times were central to his election, but are less enthusiastic. this tour.
Biden will be the keynote speaker at the state party’s fundraising dinner Saturday evening ahead of the first-ever “first in the nation” Democratic primary on Feb. 3. He will stay to attend a political event at St. John Baptist. Church on Sunday, in a state where politics and faith are intertwined.
Deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said of the primaries that Biden’s team was working to “blow this out of the water” by running up the score against longshot challengers. The Biden campaign also wants to learn lessons about activating Black voters — the backbone of the party — ahead of an expected 2024 rematch with Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
It was the first time Biden shared a stage with Rep. Dean Phillips, a long-running challenger for the Democratic nomination, who called on the 81-year-old president to step aside so a younger generation of leaders could take on Trump.
“The numbers don’t mean things are looking good,” Phillips said of Biden’s polls. At times he struggled to keep the attention of the crowd, many of whom held Biden campaign signs ahead of the president’s appearance.
“My invitation to President Biden is to pass the torch,” Phillips said. Struggling to hold the attention of the crowd, many of whom held Biden campaign signs ahead of the president’s appearance, Phillips repeatedly asked the crowd to quiet down and listen to him.
He told the Associated Press that he had no interaction with Biden at the event and said of Biden’s staff: “No. I don’t think they want him to see me.”
Before the dinner, Biden stopped at Regal Lounge Men’s Barber & Spa in Columbia, greeting, owners, employees and customers in the middle of the barbershop.
The president received mixed reviews from some Black voters in the state who faced him in 2020, including dissatisfaction with his inability to deliver on voting rights legislation and other issues.
Last year, at the start of Biden’s re-election bid, conflicting views among the same South Carolina Democratic voters whose support had been so crucial to his nomination provided an early warning sign of the challenges he faces as he tries to rebuild his diverse 2020 winning coalition to breathe new life into. .
Overall, just 50% of Black adults said they approved of Biden in a December poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. That compares with 86% in July 2021, a shift that raises concerns about the president’s reelection prospects.
APVoteCast, a comprehensive national survey of the electorate, also found that support for Republican candidates among Black voters rose slightly during the 2022 midterm elections, even though Black voters overwhelmingly supported Democrats.
The Biden campaign is running TV ads in South Carolina highlighting Biden initiatives that it hopes will boost enthusiasm among Black voters.
“On his first day on the job with a country in crisis, President Biden went to work – for us,” the ad says. “Cutting black child poverty in half, more money for black entrepreneurs, millions of new, good-paying jobs and he lowered the cost of prescription drugs.”
According to tracking data, the campaign is spending more than $270,000 on ads through the primary campaign. The Democratic National Committee also launched a six-figure advertising campaign in South Carolina and Nevada, following the Democratic primaries, to boost enthusiasm for Biden among Black and Latino voters. And first lady Jill Biden was in the state Friday night to rally voters.
Biden’s campaign has also hired staff in South Carolina to organize ahead of the primaries and during the general election, even though the state has elected a Republican as president for nearly 50 years.
Meanwhile, a pro-Biden super PAC, Unite the Country, is airing an ad in which Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina crosses off what he says are key Biden achievements, such as reducing student loan debt and lowering insulin costs for elderly.
It was Clyburn’s show of support for his old friend Biden in 2020 that helped the then-candidate to a thunderous victory in the South Carolina presidential primaries.
In the new ad, Clyburn references his late wife Emily, who influenced his support for Biden in 2020. She said “if we want to win the presidency, we better nominate Joe Biden,” Clyburn says in the ad. “She was right then, and she’s still right.”
Clyburn greeted Biden at the airport and accompanied him during his visit.
While Trump has seen some improvement in support among Black and Latino voters, Biden’s team is more concerned that a lack of enthusiasm for Biden will depress turnout among voters crucial to the Democratic coalition.
Biden’s team is using South Carolina as a testing ground and is monitoring which messages and platforms are gaining traction with voters.
South Carolina, where Black voters make up the majority of the Democratic electorate, is now the first meaningful contest in the Democratic presidential race after the party reworked the party’s nomination calendar at Biden’s request. The start with Iowa and New Hampshire has long been criticized because the states are less diverse than the rest of the country.
“It’s important for us to show up and show up,” said 22-year-old Shivani Dahya, a state Democratic Party member from Rock Hill, asking how important it is that Biden performs well with nonwhite Democratic voters in South Carolina. “I think because we’re the first in the country, we’ve set the example so that other states can look at us and say, look at them, they’re voting, they’re getting out, so let’s do the same.”
Raising the vote in South Carolina was also political payback to the state and Clyburn for their role in sending Biden to the White House.
Clyburn, co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign, remains one of the president’s staunchest advocates in Congress, as well as in his home state. He often reminds people of the same message he delivered in his 2020 statement of support: “We know Joe, and Joe knows us.”
Biden’s decision to campaign in the state “helps cement South Carolina’s place first in the nation’s primaries,” said Michael Tyler, Biden’s campaign communications director.
It also offers Biden a chance to reconnect with Black voters who have connections that extend far beyond South Carolina.
“It is clear that the diaspora is strong and there are strong family ties with other key swing states in the region such as Georgia and North Carolina,” Tyler said.
This is Biden’s second trip to South Carolina this month. He spoke earlier this month from the pulpit of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, where nine black parishioners were shot and killed in 2015 by a white stranger they invited to their Bible study. In his speech, Biden denounced the “poison” of white supremacy in America and said such ideology has no place in America, “not today, tomorrow or ever.”
It was intended as a direct contrast to Trump, who accused Biden of “glorifying” political violence rather than condemning it.