2020 South Carolina Democratic Primary

Joe Biden, winner of the 2020 South Carolina Democratic primary.

The 2020 South Carolina Democratic primary was the fourth nominating contest by the Democratic Party in the 2020 Presidential Election. It was held in South Carolina on Saturday, February 29, 2020. 54 of the state's 63 delegates for the Democratic National Convention were to be allocated to the party's presidential candidates based on the results of the vote.

Former U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden was the frontrunner among state Democratic voters leading up to the primary, and was projected to win following the closure of the polls at 7:00 p.m. EST.^[1]

Procedure[edit]

The South Carolina primary is an open primary, in that state residents can cast ballots in it, regardless of party registration or lack thereof. The only restriction is that they cannot vote in both the Democratic and Republican state primaries. The state has relatively lax requirements for a candidate to appear on the ballot—only the payment of a $1,000 fee is required—hence, a total of 33 candidates will officially take part in the primary.

In-person absentee voting was allowed up until Friday, February 28, as was mail-in voting, although this had to be applied for in advance. On the day of the election, polls were open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST. South Carolina will be represented by a total of 63 delegates at the DNC in July, of which nine are unpledged to any candidate and will include the state's two Democratic representatives in Congress and seven DNC members. The remaining 54 were pledged to the candidates on a proportional basis in accordance with the results of the election. Of these 54 delegates, 35 will represent the state's seven congressional districts (varying from three to eight per district), while the other 19 will represent the state at large. Delegate pledging is determined according to the primary vote statewide as well as in each district.

As is true in all Democratic presidential primaries, a candidate must receive at least 15% of the vote on either the district or state level to be awarded any delegates.^[2]

Polling[edit]

Despite his poor showing in most of the presidential debates and in the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa and Nevada caucuses, Joe Biden held a consistent lead in polling prior to the primary. The most recent poll, from Atlas Intel (February 25–28), showed Biden in the lead with 35%, followed by Vermont senator Bernie Sanders at 24%, billionaire Tom Steyer at 12%, South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg at 8%, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren at 7%, Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar at 4%, and Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard at 2%.^[3] Other recent polls showed similar proportions of the vote, with one from Trafalgar Group giving Biden as much as 44%.^[4]

The most recent poll aggregators suggested a lead for Biden, with 35-40%, followed distantly by Sanders, Steyer, and Buttigieg.

Results[edit]

Based on the strength of his numbers in the polls going into the primary, multiple news agencies projected a victory for Biden immediately following the close of the polls at 7:00 PM EST. These were confirmed by the subsequent vote count, with nearly all precincts reporting within the next few hours.

Biden won every county in the state, although his margin of victory was higher in the heavily African-American counties of the "Low Country"; he received 70% of the vote in Williamsburg County, his best showing, as compared to less than 40% in some of the northwestern counties.^[5] This was attributed partly to the endorsement he received from black Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn on February 26, with 70% of those who decided on a candidate afterward selecting Biden.^[6]

On the evening of the 29th, after Biden was projected win, billionaire Tom Steyer announced he was dropping out of the race. Despite a respectable third-place finish (in some Low Country counties, he actually finished second, ahead of Sanders, having especially appealed to black voters), he fell below the 15% threshold needed to gain any delegates, and admitted he no longer saw a path forward.^[7] Pete Buttigieg, who finished in single digits in the state (African-American opposition to homosexuality being an important factor), initially vowed to continue on, given his respectable showing earlier in Iowa and New Hampshire, but on March 1, he announced he was suspending his presidential campaign.^[8]

Biden's victory lap[edit]

In three presidential runs since 1988, Biden finally won his first primary, giving Biden more primary votes than Sanders. Biden is winning the popular vote, albeit with Black votes opposed to the extreme leftist agenda of white liberals. After Biden's win, he had this exchange with Chris Wallace of FOX News Sunday:^[9]

Chris Wallace: President Trump went after you about this at CPAC yesterday. Take a look at what he said [cut to video clip]:

President Trump: Joe is not gonna be running the government. He's just going to be sitting in a home someplace and people are gonna be running it for him.

Chris Wallace: Your response to the President, sir?.
Biden: Is that the sable genius saying that? Give me a break. God love him. I'm gonna resist saying what I feel like saying.
Chris Wallace: No, go ahead. Don't resist it, Mr. Vice President.
Biden: No, I'm not gonna do it. I'm not going to try to, you know, assign names and insults to the stable genius. This is a guy who doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't know how to run the country, is making us more unsafe the way he's responding to the coronavirus. He has done virtually nothing well that I can see. And so I can hardly wait to debate him on stage. I want people to see me standing next to him and him standing next to me. We'll see who's sleepy.
Chris Wallace: Mr. Vice President, thank you. Thanks for your time. Please come back in less than 13 years, sir.
Biden: All right, Chuck [ Chuck Todd of Meet the Press, presumably ]. Thank you very much.

Chris Wallace: All right. It's Chris. But anyway.....

References[edit]