(C) Florida Phoenix This story was originally published by Florida Phoenix and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . President Biden’s certain to win SC’s primary. So, why the all-out push? [1] ['Abraham Kenmore', 'More From Author', '- February'] Date: 2024-02-01 COLUMBIA — President Joe Biden is again counting on South Carolina to change the trajectory of his campaign. He and his proxies have said it repeatedly over the past month: South Carolina Democrats put Biden in the White House four years ago. Now do it again. Please. Unlike 2020, the outcome of Saturday’s presidential primary is a given. But Democrats are pushing for a big turnout to counteract the headwinds of Biden’s stubbornly low approval ratings and sagging enthusiasm among Democrats’ key constituencies in an expected rematch with Donald Trump. “If you can get reasonably high turnout in a primary that doesn’t mean a whole lot, it can help change that media narrative that Biden isn’t popular right now among the Democrats,” said Danielle Vinson, a political science professor at Furman University. “It gives them, really, a chance to kick off the campaign,” she told the SC Daily Gazette. Seeking that springboard, Biden’s campaign and the Democratic Party have focused their get-out-the-vote efforts in South Carolina almost entirely on Black voters, who make up a large portion of the party’s base here. Where he’s campaigning During his whirlwind visit to the state’s capital last weekend, Biden stopped at a Black barber shop ahead of his speech at the Democratic Party’s “First-in-the-Nation Celebration” fundraising dinner — where he again thanked his “best friend,” U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, for his game-changing endorsement in 2020. On Sunday, he visited two Black churches. In the morning, he spoke at St. John Baptist, the home church of two popular South Carolina figures: former Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, now a senior adviser in his administration; and legendary Lady Gamecock A’ja Wilson, who led the basketball team to multiple titles including a national championship. Accompanied at the church by Clyburn and Benjamin — whose wife, Biden noted at Saturday’s dinner, he put on the federal bench — Biden thanked Black churches for pushing America toward the promises founded in the Declaration of Independence. “You give us a mountaintop,” Biden said. “You give us a promised land.” In the afternoon, he mingled at a luncheon at Brookland Baptist, one of South Carolina’s largest Black churches, where — according to a White House report — a 93-year-old woman presented Biden with a hand-crocheted American flag. It’s also where first lady Jill Biden spoke two days earlier before attending a Black sorority gala. Driving the bus The campaign’s not just signaling. It’s broadcasting to Black voters that they are the priority, and they’re why the party chose South Carolina to lead the nominating contest. Touting a “six-figure” ad blitz in South Carolina, Democratic Party officials noted it’s the party’s earliest ever spending during a presidential contest on outreach to Black voters. “When you think about the heart and the backbone of the Democratic Party, if there are any folks who deserve to go from the back of the bus to driving the damn bus, it’s the Black folks here in South Carolina,” Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said last week at a historically Black college in Sumter. Harrison, who’s from South Carolina, wants future nominating calendars to keep South Carolina first, another reason the party wants a strong showing Saturday. South Carolina allows Biden’s campaign to show early on they want to earn Black votes, said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University, whose research and courses cover African American politics. “Whether or not showing up at a Black church or a barbershop or a soul food restaurant is the right way to reach all different types of Black people” is debatable, she said. But “he’s not just campaigning for the people in that room,” she continued. “He’s also trying to send a message that, ‘Hey, we are spending time in Black communities. We’re not ignoring Black communities and just assuming they’re all going to vote Democratic anyway.” The all-out push follows multiple national polls in December that showed about one in five Black voters didn’t want to vote for Biden or Trump. Some polls even showed Trump sizably improving his support among Black voters since 2020. And Trump too is courting the Black vote. On the night before Trump’s face off in South Carolina against former Gov. Nikki Haley, the former president is headlining a fundraising dinner in Columbia organized by a Black conservative group. The theme of the Feb. 23 event is titled “Recognizing the American Dream.” “A lot of times African American voters kind of feel neglected in the Democratic Party. It’s sort of assumed they will vote Democratic,” Vinson said. “Trump is showing that’s not always the case, particularly with younger African American men.” Not helping Biden’s case are the protesters from his own base who try to disrupt nearly every event. Their numbers haven’t been large in South Carolina. On Saturday, protesters calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza lined the motorcade. But at the dinner, Biden just kept talking as a few well-dressed protesters were escorted out. A single protester stood outside the church Sunday morning. But it’s a problem for the campaign nationally. More than 1,000 Black pastors, often pressured by their congregants, have called for Biden to back a ceasefire, the New York Times reported. And Biden’s handling of the conflict is increasingly unpopular among the very people Democrats are hoping to turn out in South Carolina and elsewhere — young voters and Black voters. U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, one of the other two Democrats on the ballot Saturday, said he fully expects Biden will trounce him in South Carolina. But he contends Biden will lose to Trump in November. “Some people will refer to his age and his decline, which is self-evident. Anyone paying attention can see it,” Phillips told the SC Daily Gazette at Saturday’s dinner, where he repeatedly stopped his speech to ask the audience to pay attention to him. The war in the Middle East is just one reason voters aren’t enthusiastic for Biden, he said. The Biden campaign is banking on South Carolina shifting that thinking. Polls indicate the messaging may be working. The latest poll from Quinnipiac University, released Wednesday, shows Biden taking the lead over Trump in a head-to-head contest. Meanwhile, the get-out-the vote effort in South Carolina continues, as Vice President Kamala Harris returns Friday for her third trip here in a month. She’ll make a final pitch for the campaign at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, the state’s only public historically Black four-year college. How many voters turn out for a primary with the winner already known remains to be seen. Scott Huffmon, director of the Winthrop Poll, thinks turnout will be low. As of Tuesday, under 26,000 people statewide had voted early for the contest, according to the state Election Commission. The two-week early voting window ends at 6 p.m. Friday. Still, the results could make the case for keeping South Carolina first in the much more consequential primary of 2028, he said. “To the degree that they need an argument to put forward in 2028 that South Carolina should be before New Hampshire, they need some turnout, but it’s not going to be record breaking by any stretch of the imagination,” said Huffmon, founder of the Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at Winthrop University. This story was published earlier by the South Carolina Daily Gazette, an affiliate of the nonprofit States Newsroom network, which includes the Florida Phoenix. [END] --- [1] Url: https://floridaphoenix.com/2024/02/01/president-bidens-certain-to-win-scs-primary-so-why-the-all-out-push/ Published and (C) by Florida Phoenix Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/floridaphoenix/