Minutes after the polls closed in South Carolina, multiple news outlets, including NBC, called the race: former vice president Joe Biden won the Democratic primary there. This is the first state primary that Biden has won in his three presidential campaigns.
Results are still coming in, but this was a badly needed win for Biden, who failed to win any delegates in the New Hampshire primary before eking out a distant second place in last week’s Nevada caucuses. The former vice president has been hoping that his support among African-American voters would keep his campaign alive, and he looks to have pulled that off. Black voters make up 61 percent of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina, and according to exit polls Biden secured 60 percent of the black vote.
Those exit polls showed Biden far enough ahead for news outlets to make the call—unlike, say, Iowa where there were technical difficulties, complicated caucuses instead of straight voting, and a much tighter race. The stunningly short amount of time between polls closing and Biden being declared the victor caught many people online off guard, and is already eliciting a lot of skepticism among non-Biden supporters, setting off a “With 0%” trend on Twitter. Actress and former New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, who has endorsed Sanders, tweeted, “Hey look, NYT says Joe Biden won South Carolina with 0% of precincts reporting!”
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and billionaire Tom Steyer are expected to secure second and third place, respectively. NBC projects that Biden will take 20 of South Carolina’s 54 pledged delegates. That puts him in second place, behind Sanders’s 46, plus however many he secures in South Carolina. On Twitter, Biden announced his victory, saying, “Thank you, South Carolina! To all those who have been knocked down, counted out, and left behind—this is your campaign. Together, we will win this nomination and beat Donald Trump.”
With results still coming in, South Carolina is likely the first state in 2020 where Bernie Sanders did not win the popular vote. Since 1992, the winner of South Carolina’s Democratic primary has gone on to become the party’s nominee—with the exception of John Edwards in 2004—but this year Biden is up against much better-polling opponents. In addition to leading all national polls now, Sanders is currently polling first in California and Texas, two delegate-rich states that are among the 14 states primaries and caucuses voting this coming Tuesday. Exiting polling on Saturday suggests that the Vermont senator was the favorite among younger black voters, voters under 44, and first-time voters. Biden, however, seems to have won outright among both black voters as a whole and older voters, two key demographics for Democratic candidates—and if Sanders does become the party’s nominee, he’ll have to figure out how to reach those constituencies to win in the general.
Biden’s campaign benefited from two major bumps in the week leading up to the primary. First, there was Tuesday’s Democratic debate in Charleston, which Biden managed to get through without any headline-grabbing gaffes. Following that debate, where Biden blended into the general poorly-moderated mess, Biden got a coveted endorsement from South Carolina representative Jim Clyburn—the majority whip, the highest-ranking black member of Congress. Speaking to CNN, Clyburn said Biden’s win in South Carolina needed to be big. “We’re trying to create a surge here. There’s going to be 14 states voting on next Tuesday, and we would like to see him go into those 14 states with a big vote out of South Carolina.”
