Biden overwhelmingly wins S. Carolina’s Democratic primary

COLUMBIA, S.C. — President Joe Biden has won South Carolina’s Democratic primary, notching an overwhelming 2024 victory in the state that vaulted him to the White House four years ago.

Biden on Saturday defeated the other longshot Democrats on South Carolina’s ballot, including Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson.

The president’s campaign had invested heavily in driving up turnout for Biden, aiming to test-drive efforts to mobilize Black voters, who are a key part of the Democratic vote in South Carolina and central to Biden’s strategy for victory in November.

Biden was looking for an easy victory in a primary that officially kicks off his party’s nominating process, validating a new lineup he championed to better empower Black voters who helped revive his 2020 campaign.

He was overwhelmingly favored against Phillips and Williamson. Yet the long and sometimes contentious process that saw the Democratic National Committee officially replace Iowa with South Carolina in its presidential primary’s leadoff spot has made what’s unfolding noteworthy.

The GOP’s South Carolina primary is Feb. 24.

Arguing that voters of color should play a larger role in determining the Democratic presidential nominee, Biden championed a calendar beginning in South Carolina. The state is reliably Republican, but 26% of its residents are Black.

In the 2020 general election, Black voters made up 11% of the national electorate, and 9 in 10 of them supported Biden, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of that election’s voters.

Swipe at Trump

Biden took a swipe at his presumptive election opponent Donald Trump, calling his predecessor in the White House “worse in terms of his behavior” than during the 2020 presidential campaign.

With just over nine months to go until the 2024 election, Biden said Saturday that voters are beginning to focus on the contest and expressed confidence about his campaign effort.

“I’m feeling good about where we are,” he told a cheering crowd at his campaign’s headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden cited several recent polls, including one by Quinnipiac University, that show him leading Trump nationally in a head-to-head matchup.

Biden made his remarks before heading to California and Nevada for Democratic campaign events over the weekend.

For his part, Trump is on track to lock in the Republican Party’s presidential nomination after victories in early nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Bloomberg News/Morning Consult polling shows Biden trailing Trump in each of seven swing states, with a majority saying Biden is responsible for a surge in migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump in his campaign has portrayed Biden as weak and mentally fading, while focusing his rhetoric on immigration at the southern border and promising mass deportations if he’s elected a second time. The White House has dismissed suggestions that Biden, 81, is too old to serve another four years as president. Trump is 77.

While Biden didn’t mention Trump by name, he has been stepping up his attacks on the former president. On Saturday, he said “the guy we’re running against” is “even worse in terms of his behavior than the last time in 2020.”

“It’s the weirdest campaign I’ve ever been engaged in,” Biden said Saturday.

Biden is scheduled to fly to Los Angles and to appear at an event in Las Vegas Sunday and Monday.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report.