South Carolina Democrats Kick-Off Primary as Biden Courts Black Voters

Democrats in South Carolina cast their votes today in the party’s inaugural primary contest for 2024, making it the first state to hold a Democratic primary this election cycle. President Biden played a significant role in advocating for this shift in the party’s primary calendar, placing South Carolina ahead of the traditionally influential states of Iowa and New Hampshire. While Democrats do not expect to win South Carolina in the general election, the decision highlights the importance of Black voters, a critical component of the party’s base.

The incumbent president, Biden, is anticipated to dominate the primary. Also on the ballot are Rep. Dean Phillips from Minnesota and author Marianne Williamson. Although he chose not to participate in the unofficial primary held earlier this month, Biden received a significant number of write-in votes. However, those results will not contribute to his official nomination at the party’s convention in August.

Biden’s campaign saw South Carolina as an opportunity to launch his bid for reelection, given that Black voters constitute approximately 60% of the Democratic electorate in the state. “I wouldn’t be here without the Democratic voters of South Carolina, and that’s a fact,” Biden acknowledged at a recent dinner in Columbia. Accordingly, his campaign has invested considerable resources in the state in recent weeks. Biden engaged with voters at a local barbershop, delivered a speech at a luncheon in a Black church, and Vice President Harris campaigned there on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. First lady Jill Biden attended a gala honoring the historically Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

<p"Biden campaign's communications director for state operations, Josh Marcus-Blank, affirmed the significance of South Carolina, stating, "We know that to be the Democratic nominee and to win the general, you need to be getting a lot of support from voters of color. And that's what South Carolina is all about."

Analysts will closely observe the primary’s turnout as a key indicator of whether Biden’s message is resonating among younger and nonwhite voters, with whom he has seen a decline in approval ratings. However, Terrance Woodbury of HIT Strategies, a research group specializing in Black voter attitudes, cautioned against overanalyzing the primary’s outcome. Woodbury emphasized that this contest will mainly attract party loyalists and may not accurately reflect the broader group of Black voters that Biden needs to secure victory in critical 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 noted in an interview with NPR.