Biden is overwhelmingly favored against Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne 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.
Biden was in Delaware — not South Carolina — on Saturday before leaving for a trip to California and Nevada. He attended an open house at his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, telling supporters, “I’m feeling good about where we are.” The president said voters around the country are beginning to focus on the election and "the polling data is picking up across the board.”
“We cannot, we cannot, we cannot lose this campaign, for the good of the country,” Biden said before leaving on a weekend trip. He appeared with first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Biden also called into four black radio stations to talk up the importance of South Carolina's primary, telling WJMZ Radio in Greenville, “We have a large African American population in America, they deserve to have a say – particularly in the Democratic Party – a say in who the nominee should be.”
Earlier in the day, in South Carolina's capital of Columbia, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said, “We all know that we, because of the color of this, we, our great grandparents, our grandparents, could not always vote here.” A South Carolina native who is black, Harrison pointed to his own skin.
“For this president to say, 'Jaime, for the entirety of your life, we have started this process in Iowa and New Hampshire, and now, we're going to start it in South Carolina' — no other president before ever decided to touch that issue," Harrison added. "But Joe Biden did, and I will always be grateful to the president for giving us a chance, for seeing us, and understanding how much we matter.”
Biden pushed for South Carolina to go first followed three days later by Nevada. The new calendar also moves the Democratic primary of Michigan, a large and diverse swing state, to Feb. 27, before the expansive field of states voting on March 5, known as Super Tuesday.
South Carolina was also where Biden reversed his fortunes with a resounding victory during the 2020 Democratic primary after defeats in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
Many black Democrats in South Carolina are still loyal to Biden after he was vice president to the nation's first black president, Barack Obama. The state's senior member of the U.S. House, Democrat Jim Clyburn, long one of Congress' most powerful black leaders, remains a close Biden friend and ally.
The Democratic establishment — and even potential presidential hopefuls who could have competed against the president from the left or middle — have lined up behind Biden. The DNC also isn’t planning primary debates, while Phillips has challenged his name not appearing on primary ballots in Florida and North Carolina.
Biden’s campaign, the DNC and its other fundraising arms announced raising $97-plus million in the final three months of last year and entered 2024 with $117.4 million in cash on hand. Former president Donald Trump amassed about $130 million in 2023's final quarter and had $42-plus million to start the election year.
