Joe Biden won the South Carolina presidential Democratic primary by a massive landslide. Competing against the former chairman and co-owner of Talenti Gelato Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson, Biden received over 96% (over 125,000) of the overall votes. Biden’s re-election campaign cost about $400,000 and in the end won 55 South Carolina delegates.
South Carolina isn’t the first state Biden has won over. In the New Hampshire primary, Biden won the majority Democratic votes through write-ins since his name was not on the ballot for the New Hampshire primaries. According to state law, New Hampshire was to host the first primary; however, the DNC (Democratic National Committee) wanted Biden to start in South Carolina because of his ‘not-so stellar’ track record (placed 5th in 2020) in New Hampshire and ultimately decided that he was not to participate. Biden still won through thousands of people writing his name down despite not being on the poll at 64.8%.
Biden’s overwhelming victory shows that Williamson and Phillip are not serious threats to Biden and that he will be winning most, if not all, future Democratic votes in the primaries. From the looks of it, he is guaranteed to be the Democratic Party’s nominee. The next Democratic primary will be in Nevada on February 6th, so be on the lookout if you're interested!
Links:
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/04/biden-nets-landslide-victory-in-south-carolina-democratic-primary-winning-96percent-of-votes.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/03/biden-wins-south-carolina-primary-00139479
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/23/why-biden-isnt-new-hampshire-primary-ballot/
(if any are interested in the primary calendars/results)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-primary-elections/calendar
https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/calendar
5 comments:
Having Biden opt out of registering for the New Hampshire primary because of fear that he wouldn't perform well is a confusing strategic decision to me given how well he performed even as a write-in candidate without really campaigning. Overall, the fact that he didn't participate will likely only raise some questions about his political/strategic competence instead of gaining him traction with the nomination that he was going to win either way.
I think that it was interesting choice that Biden tried to appeal to the South Carolinians by choosing not to run in New Hampshire in his first primary. Though Biden was not at the New Hampshire primary, he was still able to win the primary by a decent margin. I think it will be interesting to see how this decision will influence how voters in New Hampshire will view candidates (especially democratic ones) during the general election and future primaries to come.
Not particularly surprised about the way the Democratic primary elections are going. Even back in 2020 Biden's only real competitor seemed to be Bernie Sanders, but even then there was still a significant margin between the two. Now, as the incumbent, in the eyes of the public he has gained crucial experience and influence other candidates don't have, only garnering more support for him (not to mention any informal powers the title of incumbent gives him).
His odds of a landslide win are looking even better since one of his two opponents, Marianne Williamson, dropped out yesterday (2/7). Really seems to appear we will be having a repeat of the Bernie v. Trump presidential race.
Similar to what Chin-Yi said, I also think that these results aren't very surprising. His presidency has also provided a lot of publicity (both good and bad). In addition to the publicity, some people are willing to just vote for him as long as they know who he is and that he is part of the Democratic Party. Seen through the results, it doesn't seem like he will have to worry about any contestors for being the Democratic Party's nominee.
I agree with Chin-yi, these results aren't surprising to me since Biden is now an incumbent he has a much higher chance of being reelected as we have learned in class. Incumbents have a higher chance of being reelected because citizens already know their name, access to more resources, they have more media coverage, and they are also able to campaign while in office.
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