South Carolina, which helped Joe Biden win the Democratic nomination four years ago, will give the president his first official primary victory of the 2024 campaign on Saturday.
Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson are also on the ballot. However, Biden remains the overwhelming favorite to win as he continues his quest to accumulate the delegates required to secure his party's candidacy again. The South Carolina primary on Saturday will decide the fate of fifty-five delegates.
This year is the first time South Carolina has featured at the top of the official Democratic nominating calendar, thanks entirely to Biden's efforts.
DNC favors South Carolina over Iowa and New Hampshire.
For decades, Iowa and New Hampshire have cast the first votes in Democratic presidential primaries. However, the Democratic National Committee chose to move those states back on the calendar in response to complaints that their predominantly white electorates did not reflect a Democratic base that is much more diverse nationwide.
Iowa Democratic officials accepted the adjustments, opting for a mail-in caucus with ballots delivered to voters beginning January 12 and due back by March 5 — Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen other states will hold their primaries.
New Hampshire officials pushed back, citing a state law demanding that its primary be the nation's first, and held a renegade Democratic primary alongside the Republican primary on January 23.
However, the Democratic National Committee punished the Granite State by denying it delegates to the party's 2024 conference. Because the state did not follow the DNC's timeline, Biden did not file to appear on the state's primary ballot. But the president's supporters mounted a successful write-in campaign on his behalf, resulting in his receiving 64% of the vote.
The state that fueled Biden's 2020 victory
Biden made two trips to South Carolina last month to secure the state's place as the first primary in the 2024 Democratic contest, and Vice President Kamala Harris hosted a get-out-the-vote event at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg on Friday.
"You've had my back, and I hope I've had yours," Biden said to the Sunday lunch throng at Brookland Baptist Church in Columbia last weekend.
On Saturday, the president will leave South Carolina for a fundraising tour of Southern California and Nevada.
Although Biden has little real competition for the Democratic nomination, Saturday's primary is significant for the president since it signals a return to the position that propelled him to the Democratic nomination in 2020.
Biden entered the South Carolina primary that year after coming fifth in the Iowa caucuses, fourth in the New Hampshire primary, and a distant second in the Nevada caucuses. However, the Palmetto State's huge Black population, as well as a late endorsement from important Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, contributed to Biden's decisive victory, which displayed strength with a core Democratic constituency that no other primary challenger could match.
Days later, Biden drew closer to winning the party's nomination by amassing a nearly unassailable delegate advantage across a wide swath of diverse states on Super Tuesday.
Republicans control South Carolina's general elections. Jimmy Carter, the last Democratic presidential contender, won the state in 1976.
However, the Biden campaign and its allies' push in South Carolina is part of a larger effort to shore up support among Black voters, a bloc critical to the president's reelection prospects, particularly in battleground states such as Georgia and the "blue wall" states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The Democratic primary takes place three weeks before the Republicans vote on February 24. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley may have one more chance to block former President Donald Trump's march to a third Republican presidential nomination. However, a recent Monmouth University-Washington Post survey saw Clinton losing Trump by 26 points in her own state primary.
