President Joe Biden pushed all of his chips to the center of the table for the Feb. 3 South Carolina Democratic primary.
The Biden camp openly touted its desperation to get Black voters to the polls to support their flailing candidate. Deputy campaign manager Quinton Fulks said as much in targeting the South Carolina primary as a golden opportunity.
Fulks declared, “President Biden has long believed that our nominating process should reflect our party’s rich diversity, and he’s following through on that commitment and his commitment to Black voters, the backbone of the Democratic Party.”
South Carolina was bumped to the top of the Democratic bracket this year for reasons that are patently obvious.
Biden in 2020 relied heavily on the state after poor showings in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Many national party members are expected to flood the Palmetto State to bolster support for the incumbent, who is hampered by the border crisis, inflation and a sense of incompetence.
Black voters in South Carolina turn on Biden:
"Biden just wants to cause more bills for everybody." pic.twitter.com/F8nYyVXK1w
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 27, 2024
On Saturday, Biden spent time in Columbia to praise the state that drove his rise to relevance in the 2020 campaign. He addressed the South Carolina Democratic Party’s “First in the Nation” dinner and specifically targeted Black voters.
Biden declared, “The truth is, I wouldn’t be here without the Democratic voters of South Carolina, and that’s a fact. You’re the reason I am president. You’re the reason Kamala Harris is a historic vice president.”
Then he turned his sights on his likely Republican counterpart in the campaign.
Biden told the gathering, “You’re the reason Donald Trump is a defeated former president. You’re the reason Donald Trump is a loser, and you’re the reason we’re gonna win and beat him again.”
The president and vice president made several trips to the state in January ahead of the looming primary. Part of his strategy was to counter polling that consistently showed he lost support in the key party demographic.
A strong showing in this voting bloc would add to the White House narrative that Biden is the only candidate who could defeat Trump in November.
The president’s speech was interrupted multiple times by protesters who were promptly escorted out of the room. Two yelled objections to U.S. support for Israel against Hamas terrorists and another shouted that Biden should declare a climate emergency.
