Black vote slipping away from Joe Biden

Joe Biden’s strength with black Democrats is being tested in South Carolina after his losses in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Joe Biden campaigns in Columbia, South Carolina, last week. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden’s strength with black Democrats is being tested in South Carolina as losses in Iowa and New Hampshire have led some voters to give his rivals a second look.

“I’ve been listening to Pete Butti­gieg,” said William Mack, 25, who was in a predominantly black barbershop wearing a smock bearing the image of former president Barack Obama. Mr Mack said his parents’ support for Mr Biden had led him to think that he, too, would cast a ballot for the former vice-president when his state hosts its February 29 primary.

But Mr Mack said he started to give Mr Buttigieg a look after hearing that the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, had outperformed Mr Biden in New Hampshire’s prim­ary. “I just feel like he’s a young and energetic person,” Mr Mack said of Mr Buttigieg.

To be sure, Mr Biden remains the 2020 presidential candidate with the most support among black Americans, an important factor in a state in which more than 60 per cent of Democratic voters are black. Many of Mr Biden’s rivals, including Mr Buttigieg, have struggled to gain widespread traction in South Carolina.

The Biden campaign insists its underperformance in the early contests won’t undermine the support­ among black voters, particula­rly older ones, who consistently say they appreciate Mr Biden for his time in the White House as Mr Obama’s No 2.

Yet there are signs Mr Biden’s black support could erode enough to make South Carolina compet­itive. Trav Robertson, the state Democratic Party chairman, has been working in South Carolina politics for 20 years and said the race is the most fluid he has seen.

“This race is wide open here,” Mr Robertson said. “Joe Biden has some work to do in order to close the deal and win South Carolina.”

A dearth of public polling in the Palmetto State makes it hard to asses­s how the electorate is leaning. But a survey released after Mr Biden’s fourth-place tally in Iowa’s caucuses and fifth place in New Hampshire suggests that his posit­ion with black Democrats in South Carolina is weakening.

The East Carolina University’s survey, conducted in the days ­before the Iowa caucuses, showed Mr Biden leading the field among black South Carolina likely voters, with 44 per cent support. ECU conducted another poll after the New Hampshire primary, in which Mr Biden’s black support fell to 36 per cent. In that time­frame, the support for Vermont senator Bernie­ Sanders doubled from 10 per cent before Iowa to 20 per cent after New Hampshire.

Billionaire Tom Steyer was third among black likely voters, with 17 per cent. No other candid­ate was in the double digits.

Among all South Carolina Democratic voters, the gap between­ Mr Biden and Senator Sanders was closer in the post-New Hampshire poll: 28 per cent for the former vice-president compared with 20 per cent for Sanders.

Mr Biden has long bet that black Democrats would be the linchpin of his candidacy. Showing that he wanted to shore up ­support, he left New Hampshire on its election day for South Carolina, the first state in the Democratic primary contest in which the party’s powerful black voting bloc gets its say. The Biden campaign has long considered this state a firewall against losses in the states that vote earlier.

Nevada’s caucuses are on Sunday­ (AEDT), followed by South Carolina’s primary a week later. Then the candidates dash to bigger and more diverse states that vote on Super Tuesday, March 3. By the end of next month, a majority of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee will have been awarded.

Todd Shaw of the University of South Carolina said Mr Biden’s strength among the most loyal Democratic voting bloc, older black voters, was shaken by his weak showings in Iowa and New Hampshire. “There would be less uncertainty if Biden’s camp wasn’t going through the doldrums that it is,” he said. “Safe money would still say that Biden is most likely, but I don’t know how quickly his suppor­t is evaporating.”

Jim Hodges, the last Democrat to serve as governor in the state, endorsed Mr Biden just before the Iowa caucuses after deciding he was the candidate best able to win in November. “Despite Biden’s stumbles, those stumbles occurred in some states that aren’t particularly representative of the country,” Mr Hodges said.

Mr Hodges warned that a bad loss in Nevada this week “would have some impact, if there are three substantial losses in a row”.

The Wall Street Journal