Biden wins South Carolina Democratic primary, CNN projects

South Carolina, the state that launched Joe Biden to the Democratic nomination four years ago, will deliver the president his first official primary victory of the 2024 campaign on Saturday, CNN projects.

This year marks the first time South Carolina has appeared at the front of the official Democratic nominating calendar — a change made largely due to Biden’s urging.

To cement South Carolina’s status as the first primary of the 2024 Democratic race, Biden visited the Palmetto State twice last month, and Vice President Kamala Harris headlined a get-out-the-vote event at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg on Friday.

“You’ve had my back, and I hope I’ve had yours,” Biden told the Sunday lunch crowd at Brookland Baptist Church in Columbia last weekend.

Some context: With Biden facing little serious competition for the Democratic nomination, Saturday’s primary was important for the president nonetheless because it marked a return to the place that catapulted him to the Democratic nomination in 2020.

Biden limped into the South Carolina primary that year after finishing fifth in the Iowa caucuses, fourth in the New Hampshire primary and a distant second in the Nevada caucuses. However, the Palmetto State’s large Black population — and a late endorsement from influential Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn — helped deliver Biden a dominant victory that, for the first time, demonstrated strength with a core Democratic constituency that no other primary contender could rival.

Four years later, the push by the Biden campaign and its allies in South Carolina was part of a broader effort to shore up support with Black voters, a bloc crucial to the president’s reelection prospects, particularly in battleground states such as Georgia and the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The South Carolina Republican Party reacted to President Joe Biden’s projected win in the South Carolina Democratic primary Saturday night:

"Joe Biden is killing the American Dream with high inflation, open borders and a lackadaisical attitude towards terrorism and antisemitism. Let me be crystal clear, it’s not just that the American People don’t want four more years of Joe Biden, it’s that we won’t survive them," South Carolina GOP Chairman Drew McKissick said in a news release.

"We need a Republican back in the White House in order to reverse the tailspin Biden has put us in, and that’s exactly what we will do. For South Carolinians, it all starts on February 24th with the South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary."

As he is projected to win the South Carolina Democratic primary, President Joe Biden is attending a campaign event in Bel Air, California, per the White House pool reporter.

It appears the event is being held at a home that local outlets have previously reported has been owned by the likes of Ross Perot and George Lucas.

President Joe Biden touted his projected win in South Carolina Saturday, saying the state, which he’s credited for turning the tide in 2020, put him on a path toward victory this year.

“In 2020, it was the voters of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and set us on the path to winning the Presidency,” Biden said in a statement. 
“Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the Presidency again — and making Donald Trump a loser — again,” he said, later adding: “The stakes in this election could not be higher.”

Biden also reflected on South Carolina being the first Democratic primary.

“When I was elected President, I said the days of the backbone of the Democratic Party being at the back of the line were over. That was a promise made and a promise kept. Now, you are First In The Nation,” he said.

The calendar overhaul, done at Biden’s request, was also seen as a boost to the president, who placed poorly in the 2020 Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary before winning by a decisive margin in South Carolina, in large part due to his strong support among Black voters.

With all of South Carolina's pledged delegates allocated, CNN estimates that President Joe Biden has 55 delegates after his projected win in the state's Democratic primary.

There are 1,968 delegates required to win the Democratic nomination. 

The post was updated with the final delegate allocation.

President Joe Biden will win South Carolina's Democratic primary, CNN projects.

Democrats made South Carolina their first official primary state of the 2024 cycle, and 55 delegates are at stake.

In a result that was largely expected, Biden will defeat his two nearest challengers, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson, as he claims his first delegates in his quest to win his party’s nomination again.

This year marks the first time South Carolina has appeared at the front of the official Democratic nominating calendar — a change made largely due to Biden’s urging.

The post was updated with more details on the primary.

It's 7 p.m. ET, and polls are closing across South Carolina, where 55 delegates are at stake for Democrats.

Democrats made South Carolina their first official primary state this cycle, rewarding the Palmetto State for its diverse population — especially in the Democratic Party — and perhaps, its critical support of Joe Biden in the 2020 primary.

In the 2020 Democratic primary, Biden won nearly 49% of the vote and every county in the state – setting him on the path to become the party’s nominee. In that primary, Black voters made up 56% of the electorate and Biden won 61% of those voters.

The state's GOP primary on February 24 will be the fourth contest for Republicans. Former President Donald Trump and rival Nikki Haley are vying for the GOP nomination.

President Joe Biden will skip a pre-Super Bowl interview for the second year in a row — and his aides argue that it’s part of their larger plan, not a move to avoid having the president answer questions in front of the whole country.

Biden advisers tell CNN they see skipping the interview, which would have aired as a segment of the pregame show and not during peak viewing hours, as a strategic decision to give Americans a break from the politics of the 2024 campaign. Advisers say they’re seeing people already expressing fatigue with election news and want to avoid piling on.

“We hope viewers enjoy watching what they tuned in for — the game,” White House communications director Ben LaBolt told CNN.

Some context: The pregame presidential interview is a relatively young tradition, stretching back only to Barack Obama’s first year in office, and one that Donald Trump skipped once himself.

But for Biden — who for months has complained in public and to top advisers that messaging touting his achievements isn’t breaking through to Americans — the decision means skipping out on an audience of millions.

In past years, the Super Bowl presidential interviews often drove news coverage for days. But the Biden White House has always been skeptical of the value of doing so, in part due to anxiety that a flub could become an unwanted distraction.

President Joe Biden may be the incumbent in the White House, but rather than a referendum on Biden and his policies, the coming general election is shaping up to be yet another referendum on former President Donald Trump.

But what may be more interesting than those horse-race figures in a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS is voters’ motivation, which is dominated by Trump on both sides of the political divide. Most Biden supporters (68%) said they would be casting their vote against Trump as opposed to just 32% who said it would be a vote to support Biden.

It’s the opposite for registered voters supporting Trump; 60% said it would be a vote for Trump compared with 40% who would be casting a vote against Biden. And that’s before Trump’s four separate criminal trials get underway.

Biden’s favorability dropped last year. Trump’s rose: More Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Biden than have an unfavorable view of Trump in CNN’s poll. Trump’s unfavorable rating has dropped over the past year from January 2023, when 63% said they had an unfavorable view of the former president. It’s now at 55%. Biden’s unfavorable rating during that same period has increased, from 54% a year ago to 59% this year.

Read more about the poll and possible Trump-Biden rematch.