By Will Weissert and Meg Kinnard, Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — President Joe Biden is looking for an easy victory Saturday in South Carolina’s Democratic primary that officially kicks off his party’s nominating process, validating a new lineup he championed to better empower Black voters who helped revive his 2020 campaign.
Biden is overwhelmingly favored against Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson. Yet the long and sometimes contentious process that saw the Democratic National Committee officially replace Iowa with South Carolina in its presidential primary’s leadoff spot has made what’s unfolding noteworthy.
The GOP’s South Carolina primary is Feb. 24.
Arguing that voters of color should play a larger role in determining the Democratic presidential nominee, Biden championed a calendar beginning in South Carolina. The state is reliably Republican, but 26% of its residents are Black.
“South Carolina, you are the first primary in the nation and President Biden and I are counting on you,” Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday during a campaign stop at historically Black South Carolina State in Orangeburg. The president and first lady Jill Biden also recently campaigned in the state.
In the 2020 general election, Black voters made up 11% of the national electorate, and 9 in 10 of them supported Biden, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of that election’s voters.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, a South Carolina native, said before he voted that Biden’s push on behalf of the state showed the president’s commitment to Black voters.
“We all know that we, because of the color of this, we, our great grandparents, our grandparents, could not always vote here,” said Harrison, who is Black, as he pointed to his own skin. “For this president to say, ‘Jaime, for the entirety of your life, we have started this process in Iowa and New…
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