Steyer a thorn in Biden’s side and threat to his comeback

The former vice president has a lead, but Steyer, though not a threat to win the state, is winning support from black voters in the state that Biden needs to declare a commanding victory and give him a momentum boost in the few days before 14 states and two other jurisdictions vote in the March 3 Super Tuesday contests.

“I was thinking of Biden,” said retired North Charleston resident Victoria Johnson. “But I think I’m going to go with Steyer.”

Steyer, a hedge fund billionaire turned liberal activist, has spent more days campaigning in South Carolina than any other candidate. He has flooded airwaves with ads, spending more in the state than all the other candidates on the ballot combined and largely funded with his personal fortune.

Voters who like Steyer say that the ads are what got them interested. But it is his perspective as a Washington outsider and incorporation of efforts to address racial inequality into a wide swath of policy issues that have won their support.

“Climate justice is racial justice. Economic justice — you can’t look at a policy area in the United States, honestly, without recognizing that there’s a huge racial subtext to it. And if you don’t deal with the racial subtext, you’re not going to deal with the policy issue,” Steyer told a nearly all-black crowd of about 60 people at a campaign stop at a North Charleston bistro on Thursday before the attendees dug into plates of fried fish, beans, and rice.

He supports creating a commission on race and would support cash reparations for descendants of slaves if that commission recommended it. Unlike other candidates, race issues dominate his stump speech.

“I like everything he do for the people. He do the same thing we do for the people, with food and clothes,” said retired North Charleston resident and Steyer supporter Kathene Winston. She said that she first learned about him from a TV ad but would be happy with Biden as a nominee.

“You have some people that think somebody who is rich, and whatever, can’t relate to everyday people, but I like to see those who use their positions or their wealth to do good to give back to others,” said Christine Washington of North Charleston, 43, who owns a home health company.

Black voters made up 60% of South Carolina’s Democratic primary electorate in 2016 and are key to Democratic hopes of winning the general election in November. For that reason, the state is considered a testing ground for Democratic presidential candidates, and it often decisively picks the Democratic presidential nominee. Hillary Clinton crushed Sanders by 47 points in the 2016 South Carolina primary, Barack Obama beat Clinton by 28.9 points in 2008.

Steyer’s wooing of black voters poses an existential conundrum for Biden’s candidacy: If an out-of-nowhere billionaire can pull away voters from Biden in his South Carolina stronghold, how can he be the strongest candidate to take on President Trump?

The billionaire businessman has the second-lowest name recognition of anyone, with Morning Consult finding that 27% of Democratic primary voters nationally say that they have never heard of him, whereas Biden is known by nearly all Democratic voters.

The threat to Biden is so great that he went out of his way to take a jab at Steyer in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate.

“He, in fact, bought a system that was a private prison system,” Biden said of Steyer. “They hogtied young men in prison here in this state.”

Steyer countered that he later sold his share of that company and worked to end private prisons in California.

Biden’s hope is that voters curious about Steyer will ultimately return to Biden at the voting booth.

“I listened to what he said,” retired Sumter resident Richard White said of Steyer. But he added that a nonpolitician in the White House is not necessarily a good thing, and he thinks that Biden is better suited for the job.

“Steyer piqued my curiosity, but that’s about it,” said Leo Frazier of Clarendon County, who is retired.