A final push before the South Carolina primary
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden prepares to campaign at the St. James-Santee Family Health Center in McClellanville, South Carolina on Feb. 27, 2020. Credit: JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/Shuttersto/JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
SPARTANBURG, South Carolina — By the end of primary week in South Carolina, with most anyone in the Democratic stronghold of Charleston who wanted to meet a White House hopeful already having had several chances, the candidates fanned out across the state in search of fresher, if not greener, pastures, and were often on each other’s trails.
Friday morning, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who redoubled his efforts in the Palmetto State with a $500,000 TV ad buy and added rallies, likely won the tiny-town sweepstakes with a breakfast event in microscopic St. George before leaving the state to campaign for Super Tuesday. Sanders spoke at the Shady Grove United Methodist Church Family Life Center in this town of about 2,000 people in chronically impoverished Dorchester County.
Sanders appeared Thursday night at the basketball arena of Wofford College in Spartanburg, a city that is 50 percent black, before a crowd of several thousand people that was overwhelmingly white. Former Vice President Joe Biden will be at Wofford Friday night, but he reserved a much smaller space than Sanders: the volleyball gym adjacent to the basketball arena.
Earlier Friday, Biden shared the small town of Sumter with the candidate who also wants to divvy up his share of the black vote, billionaire businessman Tom Steyer. The two held events that overlapped in Georgetown on Wednesday, and in Sumter Friday, garnering both areas a lot more press than they are used to. Saturday those campaigns will wrap up with victory parties also a stone’s throw from each other in downtown Columbia.
And although the polling news has been dire for all but Steyer, Biden and Sanders, no one else was giving up on the state, except Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who took off after her Wednesday town hall. Sen. Elizabeth Warren had get-out-the-vote launches scheduled in Aiken and Greenville on Friday, and in Columbia on Saturday morning. Pete Buttigieg’s schedule listed a community conversation in Sumter in the afternoon and a GOTV event in Friday night in Columbia , though no location for either had been announced by Friday afternoon. The former South Bend mayor’s campaign has seen some of these events evaporate.
Even Rep. Tulsi Gabbard had a rally in North Charleston scheduled for Friday night. But the Gabbard event will be dwarfed by Trump forces coming together in North Charleston Friday evening for one of his limelight-stealing rallies. And there were early signs Trump’s crowd would blow the doors off anything any Democrat had put together throughout the week.
Trump is scheduled to appear at the North Charleston Coliseum, a location that holds 13,000 people, and one he will likely fill in this strongly Republican state. When Sanders appeared at the same venue Wednesday night, attracting a crowd of about 1,500, Trump fans already were camping out for seats.
While Trump has been a bit obsessed with coronavirus and the accusation that Democrats and the media are overblowing the danger to make him look bad. The potential pandemic has received little attention at campaign rallies, where attendees did not wear the surgical masks being hoarded and donned elsewhere in the country.
The question to be answered when the returns roll in on Saturday night will be the same one people asked about the South Carolina Democratic Primary in 2016: Can Sanders make inroads with a heavily black voting base, which is considered more moderate and more loyal to establishment Democrats like Biden? Four years ago, the amount of attention the question engendered looked foolish, as Hillary Clinton beat Sanders by nearly 50 points.
But even if Sanders does no better this time than last, the size of the field will make him look much stronger than when he headed into Super Tuesday four years ago. Then, Sanders’ 25 percent got him a shameful drubbing that planted the seeds of his eventual loss.
Now, with seven candidates, that same 25 percent would get him second place (at minimum) and the narrative that he has made progress with black voters.
That won’t be the story Biden or Steyer will tell Saturday night, but with Sanders holding big leads in most of Super Tuesday's contests, it may well be the one that dominates.
Lane Filler is a member of Newsday's editorial board.
Lane Filler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
