Joe Biden’s South Carolina win has strengthened his chances of a good showing in the Super Tuesday primaries, largely thanks to the racial demographics of Saturday’s primary.
On Saturday, Biden’s presidential bid received a vital boost after he won 48.4 percent of the popular vote in South Carolina and got 33 pledged delegates to the party’s national convention, compared with Bernie Sanders’s 19.9 percent and 11 delegates.
No other candidate was able to pass the 15-percent threshold required to secure a delegate.
“South Carolina gave Biden the victory he needed to remain viable as a presidential candidate,” says Dr. Harvey Schantz, a political science professor at the State University of Plattsburgh, New York.
He believes that Biden’s victory gives evidence that he can “assemble a multi-racial coalition of voters, which is necessary for winning a Democratic Party nomination and for a Democratic general (victory)”.
Why did Biden do so well in South Carolina?
Polls had predicted a landslide for Biden, who did poorly in the three earliest state contests, largely because of the composition of the South Carolina electorate – the first predominantly black electorate in the primaries, which associates Biden with President Barack Obama.
“In particular, African Americans made up over half of the primary electorate, a large contrast to the electorates in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada,” Dr. Schantz elaborates (nearly 60 percent of the South Carolina electorate is estimated to be black).
Biden was the favourite of this bloc, receiving 61 percent of their vote. His closest competitor, Bernie Sanders, scored just 16 percent among black voters.
“Biden also gained from his loyalty to President Barack Obama, the only African-American US president, as well as the passionate endorsement of Congressman James Clyburn, maybe the most influential Democratic and African American politician in South Carolina,” says Dr. Shantz.
Exit polls showed Biden also won big among older voters (two-thirds of voters over the age of 65) and religious voters (59 percent among those who attended religious services at least weekly).
Apart from a surge to second place in the overall delegate count (48 to Sanders’s 56), Saturday’s victory could give Biden some momentum in next week’s Super Tuesday contests in delegate-rich states which hold a more than third of all pledged delegates, Schantz suggests.
An uphill battle
But the forecast is cautious so far: “The polls in Super Tuesday States have been weak for Biden, but [his] South Carolina win may provide him with traction, especially in other southern states with substantial African-American voting blocs, such as Alabama.”
“Despite all the good news for Biden in South Carolina, the former Vice President still has an uphill battle for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, as Sanders leads in campaign funds, the polls, and organisation. There is, however, potentially a long way to go.”
This is the first time Biden has won a presidential primary in his three runs for the presidency.
The still-crowded Democratic field has shrunk after billionaire Tom Steyer, who bet on a strong finish in South Carolina, won just 11.3 percent of the vote there and dropped out of the race.
The self-styled Social Democrat Bernie Sanders is projected to win big in most Super Tuesday primaries; including the mega states of California and Texas (35 and 28 percent, respectively). Biden is expected to come in third in California with about 11 percent of the vote and second in Texas (20 percent), and could also secure a victory in North Carolina.
