South Carolina’s primary on Saturday represents Joe Biden’s best chance to finally win a primary after nearly 25 years of running for the Presidency. Biden first ran for the Democratic nomination in 1998 but had to pull out after plagiarizing speeches. He tried again in 2008 but withdrew after a 5th place finish in Iowa. This year, he started as the presumptive favorite but has finished 4th in Iowa, 5th in New Hampshire and 2nd in Nevada. However, South Carolina offers Biden an excellent opportunity to finally win a primary.
Biden appears to be the favorite among African-American voters, having served as Obama’s Vice President for eight years. Biden won nearly 40% of the African-American vote in Nevada’s caucuses and should he win a similar margin in South Carolina is likely to carry the state. Biden also received the endorsement of influential Representative James Clyburn, the dean of South Carolina’s congressional delegation. Polls show Biden as likely to win the primary by a comfortable margin of between 4 to 20 percent over Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer. Steyer has bet his entire campaign on South Carolina, investing heavily in media buys targeting the state.
We now believe that Biden is likely to win in South Carolina, but would not be surprised if turnout was lower than expected and if Biden’s margin of victory is towards the lower end of the projections. One key determinant will be how well Steyer does on election day. We believe much of his support will evaporate, recognizing that he has no chance of winning the nomination. The lower Steyer’s vote share, the better we think Biden will do. Sanders has been quite consistent in terms of his initial vote share, having won 24% in Iowa, 26% in New Hampshire, and 34% in Nevada. We believe Sanders will win close to 25% in South Carolina. Thus, Biden will have to win by keeping the other candidates (Buttigieg, Warren, Klobuchar and Steyer) share of the vote low, preferably below 10%. In doing so, he could capture 30-35% of the vote and score a solid victory.
If Biden wins South Carolina, he will immediately become the great hope of the Establishment. With Bloomberg’s chances having been diminished by two lackluster debate performances, it’s possible that the Establishment could try to coalesce around Biden on Super Tuesday and beyond as their one chance to defeat Sanders. Such a campaign would be drawn out and test Biden’s ability to organize a truly national effort. To date, Biden has struggled to raise money, been plagued by gaffes, struggled during the debates, hurt by the revelations about his son Hunter, and failed to generate much enthusiasm. However, with Democrats running out of options to stop Sanders, Biden may be their only real choice.
One good piece of news for Biden came from a New York Times article that interviewed 93 Democratic super delegates about whether they would support Sanders if he won a plurality but did not get a majority of the Democratic delegates. Only a handful would back Sanders. Recall that the 771 superdelegates can only vote on the second round if no candidate reaches 1991 on the first ballot. It’s certainly possible that should Biden and Bloomberg run reasonably strong campaigns that Sanders might finish with between 1600 and 1800 delegates but be a few hundred delegates short of a majority. Biden then might announce a unity ticket with a Vice President choice of Senator Kamala Harris (D-California), Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) or Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-Michigan) and defeat Sanders on the second or third round.
It’s certainly possible, but we believe that a victory on Saturday in South Carolina will be Biden’s high water mark. We believe Biden lacks the enthusiasm of Sanders and the progressive wing. Our prediction is that Sanders will emerge with a majority of the delegates on Super Tuesday and well positioned to win the nomination.
NewEnglandPolitics.com 