South Carolina held the primary official Democratic presidential major Saturday. However because the polls closed, President Biden was 2,400 miles away, in Los Angeles, stepping off Air Pressure One.
Biden’s victory within the Palmetto State was a foregone conclusion, and his marketing campaign invested important time there main as much as the first.
So Biden headed west. He and First Girl Jill Biden landed at LAX round 3:30 p.m. on Saturday and had been greeted by Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Maxine Waters earlier than the president choppered to the Santa Monica Airport and his spouse left individually for an occasion.
It’s unclear what they did whereas in Los Angeles. That they had no public occasions, and there have been no fundraisers recognized to be going down.
Biden had a day marketing campaign assembly at a historic Bel Air property owned by director George Lucas.
Biden’s son Hunter lives in Malibu, and Sunday is his 54th birthday. Hunter Biden is a favourite goal of the president’s Republican critics and faces federal tax expenses.
The Biden marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Republicans predictably grumbled about Biden’s choice to not go to South Carolina on Saturday, which they claimed was a slight by the incumbent.
“It simply goes to indicate you the way a lot he cares about truly coming and the way critical he’s taking it,” stated Abby Zilch, spokeswoman for the South Carolina Republican Occasion. “He and Kamala have spent the final three months coming all the way down to South Carolina, telling South Carolina Democratic voters how a lot they’re grateful for his or her celebration right here and the way a lot South Carolina means to them. But he was all the way in which throughout the nation on the day of the Democrats’ first major.”
Shortly after Air Pressure One landed on the Los Angeles Worldwide Airport, information broke that Biden had simply received the South Carolina major.
The state saved his 2020 presidential marketing campaign after he was trounced in Iowa and New Hampshire and completed a distant second in Nevada. An endorsement from Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and the enthusiastic help of Black voters within the state gave Biden an awesome victory and supplied momentum heading into the Tremendous Tuesday primaries, which had been important to him changing into the Democratic nominee.
In return, the Democratic Nationwide Committee, at Biden’s behest, overhauled the 2024 nominating calendar, formally making South Carolina the primary state to carry a major. The transfer was ostensibly meant to provide a larger voice to various voters within the early phases of the race, in contrast with caucuses and a major in overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire; it was largely seen as a present to South Carolina for saving Biden’s 2020 marketing campaign.
The president, Vice President Kamala Harris and different Democrats, together with Gov. Gavin Newsom, have spent appreciable time in South Carolina selling the Biden marketing campaign.
On Friday, Harris spoke to supporters at South Carolina State College, a traditionally Black faculty. After a drumline carried out, Harris was launched by the reigning Miss South Carolina State and touted the administration’s efforts to cancel pupil mortgage debt, cap insulin prices and increase the financial system.
“President Biden and I are guided by a basic perception: We be just right for you, the American individuals. And every single day, we battle for you,” she stated. “Sadly, nevertheless, that isn’t true for everybody. Living proof: Donald Trump. Former President Trump has made clear time and time once more: His battle shouldn’t be for the individuals. He fights for himself.”
Scott Huffmon, a political science professor at Winthrop College in Rock Hill, S.C., famous the frequency of visits by Democrats and their surrogates, together with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who visited his dwelling county on Friday.
“That is reimbursement for what South Carolina did for Joe Biden, however on a bigger scale, South Carolina is so stunningly essential to the nationwide Democratic presidential course of that holding this relationship tight and heat is extremely essential,” Huffmon stated.
He added that he doesn’t suppose most Palmetto State Democrats would have an issue with Biden spending major night time in Los Angeles, given South Carolina’s rightward tilt within the basic election. Trump simply carried the state within the 2020 presidential election. The final time a Democrat received there within the basic election was 1976, and the candidate was a fellow Southerner, Jimmy Carter.
“He’s paid his fealty. He’s completed his bows and courtesies, and now realism units in. He’s not going to win South Carolina in November,” Huffmon stated. “So the reimbursement of the debt has occurred. Now actuality units in.”
Certainly, on Sunday, Biden heads to marketing campaign occasions in Nevada, which is holding its Democratic major Tuesday and is pivotal to his reelection bid.
