It was a low primary turnout in South Carolina, but President Biden put the lie to media narratives with a dominant performance.
Biden’s campaign used South Carolina to test its message to African-American voters. African American voter turnout was 13% higher in early voting than in the competitive Democratic primaries in 2020. So much for the idea that African American voters won’t turn out for Biden.
Biden’s campaign is expected to get about 70% of the vote. Instead they took almost all of it. So much for the media narrative that Democrats won’t show up to support Biden.
What did Biden say after winning South Carolina?
In a statement provided to PoliticusUSA, President Biden said:
As I said four years ago, this campaign is for all those who have been beaten down, excluded and left behind. This is still true today. With more than 14 million new jobs and a record unemployment rate below 4% for 24 consecutive months – two years – including a record unemployment rate for Black Americans, we are leaving no one behind.
In 2020, it was South Carolina voters who proved the experts wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and put 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 put us on the path to winning the presidency again – and making Donald Trump a loser.
When I was elected president, I said the days were over when the backbone of the Democratic Party was at the back of the line. It was a promise made and kept. You are now first in the nation.
The stakes in this election couldn’t be higher. There are extreme and dangerous voices at work in the country – led by Donald Trump – who are determined to divide our nation and set us back. We can’t let that happen. We’ve come a long way in the last four years: America now has the strongest economy in the world and inflation among the lowest of any major economy. Let’s keep moving forward. Let’s finish what we started, together.
Donald Trump has yet to achieve the kind of overall victories in the Republican primaries that Biden achieved in the Democratic primaries. Trump is trying to run as the de facto incumbent of the Republican Party, but the Republican elections have revealed that a sizable percentage of the Republican Party does not want him and doubts his electability.
Democrats are literally almost 100% united behind Biden, and if this unity continues, it will be key to their victory in November.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a member of the White House press pool and a congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and professional memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association