In South Carolina, Biden woos Black voters in a changing U.S. South
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[January 27, 2024]
By Trevor Hunnicutt, Jarrett Renshaw
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) -Democrats have no chance of winning
South Carolina in November, but the state is pivotal to Joe Biden's
reelection anyway.
Democrats hope South Carolina's new role as host of the party's first
official primary on Feb. 3 will bolster support among Black voters. Top
party officials also see it as a springboard to an audacious new
strategy: retaking the American South in years to come.
The Democratic Party has struggled to win elections in the South since
the 1960s Civil Rights era. But spiking migration to the region in
recent years and a string of statewide wins in Kentucky and North
Carolina, as well as Biden's nail-biting win in Georgia in 2020, have
raised hopes that it can improve, starting with the general election in
November.
Despite his poor poll numbers nationally, Democrats hope Biden can this
year flip North Carolina, a state that has only backed a Democratic
presidential candidate once since 1980, and that the party can also win
back a handful of key congressional districts in the South.
In the longer term, they have set their sights on gubernatorial and
Senate campaigns in Louisiana and Mississippi.
They are relying on legal challenges, voter drives and a new influx of
cash, according to Reuters interviews with over a dozen top Democrats in
the region, as the president and other high-profile Democrats around the
country parachute in.
Biden visits South Carolina for the second time this month on Saturday,
for a primary election celebration dinner. It follows visits from rising
Democratic stars, including California Governor Gavin Newsom and U.S.
Representative Ro Khanna.
"Out of the ashes of the Old South, we will see, like a phoenix, the
rise of a New South," predicts Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime
Harrison, a South Carolina native. "South Carolina's impact is not just
relegated to the borders of South Carolina."
Reversing Republicans' deep hold on the South will not be easy.
South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Drew McKissick says the
Democratic Party's liberal stances on everything from the economy to
culture will repulse many of the region's more conservative voters.
"Having an earlier primary is not going to help grow their party in the
state when at the root of their problem is their issue positions," he
said.
Republicans' primary in the state is Feb. 24, after nominating contests
in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Republican former President Donald
Trump is heavily favored to win the Republican nomination and go up
against Biden in November.
SOUTH CAROLINA SANDBOX?
South Carolina, population 5 million, ranks low among U.S. states by
income and education.
But its population is also growing at the fastest rate of any U.S. state
as inflation-conscious, pandemic-weary Americans, including retirees,
seek more space, a lower cost of living and its warmer, subtropical
climate.
Unemployment in the state is at 3%, near historic lows.
South Carolina last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate -
Barack Obama - in 2008. In 2020 it went to Trump by nearly 12 percentage
points.
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Margaret Sumpter, Chair of the South Carolina Council of Black
Democrats, holds a campaign sign at a fish fry held by the South
Carolina DNC at the St. John Baptist Church to launch a get out the
vote effort for the Democratic presidential primary, in Hopkins,
South Carolina, U.S., January 14, 2024. REUTERS/Kevin Wurm/File
Photo
Biden's victory in the 2020 Democratic primary there rescued his
broke and flailing campaign, convincing rivals that he was best
positioned to win with Black voters and defeat Trump.
Democrats think the state, where it is cheap to hire and run
campaigns, can be a sort of sandbox to cultivate political talent,
test voter outreach and spotlight issues that are relevant to rural
and Black voters. A quarter of the state's eligible voters are
Black, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
"It will be transformative. Not overnight, but over time," predicts
Clay Middleton, a senior adviser at the DNC and a Charleston
resident.
TURNING OUT VOTERS
This year, nonpartisan voting rights and legal groups are aiming to
boost voter registration and participation, which is lower in the
South than in any other region, across demographic groups.
The NAACP is leading lawsuits from Alabama to North Carolina aimed
at blocking Republican efforts to reshape congressional districts in
ways that dilute Black voting power.
Black people vote 9-to-1 for Democrats in presidential races, and
one in five Southerners are Black, versus one in seven in all of the
U.S. But Southern Black voter participation lags that of white
people.
Some 3.5 million people moved to the South from other parts of the
country or the world between 2020 and 2023, census data shows, and
Democrats are courting liberal transplants.
"The bottom line is for a lot of Southern states there's just a ton
of folks who are not engaged in the process, who are on the
sidelines," said Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye, executive director of the
Democratic Party of Georgia. "The earlier the investment, the
earlier the return on the investment."
Kristin Powell, deputy director of the Black to the Future Action
Fund, which helps mobilize and register Black voters, said Democrats
too often focus on large U.S. cities and ignore rural Black voters,
like those in South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana.
Her organization targeted low-propensity voters – those who skipped
at least two of the last four major elections – in North Carolina,
Wisconsin and Georgia in 2022. They increased voting rates by 85% in
Wisconsin, 46% in North Carolina and an astounding 2,000% in
Georgia, she said.
"They don't have a sense that they are politically powerful. And
that really was the case in Southern Georgia. And if that changed,
it could be the reason that Biden, for example, could stay in
office," Powell said.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by
Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis)
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