Former Vice President Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary, providing his campaign hope of reversing the losses of the first three Democratic nominating contests and a chance for momentum heading into Super Tuesday.
Biden scored a more than two-to-one victory over his closest rival, Bernie Sanders, winning 48.4%, to 19.9%, with all precincts counted. Hedge fund executive-turned-liberal activist Tom Steyer was in third place, with 11.3%, after investing significant money in South Carolina while most rival candidates campaigned in the three earlier voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. Steyer announced after polls closed that he was dropping out of the 2020 Democratic nomination fight.
Finishing in the single digits were former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
The South Carolina primary was the 2020 Democrats’ biggest test yet on their support of black voters, a backbone of the party nationally. The Palmetto State’s Democratic electorate is about 60% black. Biden’s South Carolina win presages well for his chances on Tuesday, when 14 states and entities will vote, as the contests will include other places where black voters make up a significant part of the primary electorate, such as Alabama, Arkansas, Arkansas, and to a lesser degree, Virginia.
Biden’s win is a welcome change for his campaign. The 36-year Delaware senator, who served two terms as Barack Obama’s vice president, had lagged behind Sanders and Buttigieg in the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primary, and Nevada caucuses, each held earlier in February. South Carolina was effectively a make-or-break state for Biden, showing not only that he could win an important contest at a crucial time in the campaign, but convince potential donors they should keep up financial support.
On that front, the Super Tuesday contests will be the first in which billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg competes. Entering the Democratic scrum in November after early state filing deadlines had passed, Bloomberg gambled he could grab the nomination by spending heavily in Super Tuesday states and beyond.
That means the post-Tuesday landscape could pit Biden, Bloomberg, and Sanders against each other in a long-slog primary fight headed toward the convention in July.
Biden’s South Carolina primary victory marks the first time he’s won a Democratic nominating contest over three presidential runs, going back nearly 33 years.
