Joe Biden might have lost his front-runner status nationally, but it never left him in South Carolina.
The former vice president revived his struggling campaign with a victory in the first-in-the-South primary on Saturday, giving his White House bid new momentum as he and his mainstream allies race to slow Bernie Sanders in a sweep of states that cast ballots on Tuesday.
The former vice president staked his campaign on the Palmetto State, which he’s called both his “firewall” and his “launching pad” after a string of defeats in the first three early-voting states. He was projected to land such a commanding victory that national networks projected his win as soon as the polls closed at 7 p.m.
Though South Carolina is the fourth state on the Democratic nominating calendar, it’s the first where African Americans make up a majority of the vote. With an electorate that mirrors Georgia’s Democratic voting bloc, the results also provide clues about how the state will vote on its March 24 primary.
Biden soared to victory on a wave of support from black voters, overcoming both Sanders and billionaire Tom Steyer, a longshot candidate who far outspent his rivals in the state. Steyer dropped out of the contest shortly after his third-place finish.
Biden’s dominating victory also increased the pressure on two moderate rivals, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, to abandon the race after struggling again to win nonwhite voters.
With the spotlight on Saturday fixed squarely on Biden, he delivered a punchy victory speech that portrayed the next round of votes as a two-way contest between his more moderate approach and Sanders’ pledge for political upheaval.
“If the Democrats want a nominee who’s a Democrat, a lifelong Democrat, a proud Democrat, an Obama-Biden Democrat - then join us.”
Super Tuesday looms
The momentum from Biden’s victory might not last long. In three days, voters in 14 Super Tuesday states cast ballots in a wave of votes that could give Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, an unassailable edge in the delegate count.
His early successes and rise in national polls has terrified some party leaders who worry that Sanders’ liberal ideology makes him a sitting duck in November.
Sanders, who was headed to a second-place finish, has already shifted his gaze to those coast-to-coast contests. He held a rally Saturday in Boston where he declared to thousands that the “establishment is getting very nervous” about his bid.
He focused his remarks late Saturday on Trump, calling him a “pathological liar” unfit to lead the nation. Speaking to a throng of supporters in Virginia Beach, Va., he likened his campaign to a “movement of millions” built to overcome setbacks.
“I am very proud that in this campaign so far we have won the popular vote in Iowa, we have won the New Hampshire primary, we have won the Nevada caucus,’ he said. “But you cannot win them all. A lot of states out there.”
Other contenders have also split time between South Carolina and those more populous states, including Klobuchar and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is struggling to compete with Sanders for more liberal voters.
»RELATED: Updated delegate tracker
The two senators, along with Buttigieg, have promised to continue their campaigns no matter how poorly they wind up on Saturday, intent on showing they can build a political coalition formidable enough to defeat President Donald Trump.
Indeed, each released an exhausting schedule of travel to states that cast ballots Tuesday and beyond. Buttigieg, for one, plans to breakfast with former President Jimmy Carter in Plains before heading to neighboring Alabama.
And a new dynamic awaits the contenders on Tuesday when former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg joins the fray after skipping the first four nominating contests.
The billionaire has set new spending records on TV ads and hired droves of staffers in nearly every state as he jockeys with Biden and other rivals to emerge as the mainstream favorite.
A comeback moment
Struggling to raise cash and winless in his first three votes, Biden would have likely been forced to bow out of the race had he lost South Carolina.
So important was the state that he decamped to Columbia, the capital city, even as voters in New Hampshire were still casting ballots earlier this month.
And he unequivocally vowed to win the state at a debate days ago in Charleston, focusing his campaign apparatus here as his rivals scattered across the Super Tuesday states.
Biden's campaign hopes a decisive victory here will have the same effect it did for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who both were cemented as the top choice of black voters after their Palmetto State performances. He's long pinned his campaign on appealing to black voters, the party's most reliable bloc of supporters.
Still, even the most overwhelming of victories might not change the trajectory of the race, since early voting is already underway in many of the Super Tuesday states. Those states combine for more than 600 of the 1,991 delegates required for the nomination.
At campaign stops around the state, Biden took aim at Sanders’ liberal approach, saying that voters demand progress — not “a revolution like some folks are talking about.”
He also issued frequent reminders of his close ties to Obama and the support of U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, the state’s most sought-after Democratic endorsement. Exit polls showed nearly half of Democratic voters rated the veteran congressman’s endorsement as “important” to them.
Others said they were drawn to Biden because they feared Sanders' platform would make it impossible to defeat Trump, who at a Friday rally in North Charleston suggested that his Republican voters cast ballots for the Vermont senator.
“I don’t want Bernie Sanders to win; I don’t believe in socialism,” said I. Ladson of Goose Creek. “Besides, he can’t win in a national election.”
‘Fresh air’
Biden’s win delivered a knockout blow to Steyer, who had sought to win over undecided voters torn between the top contenders. Among them was Terry Scipio, who attended a Summerville rally after seeing Steyer in countless TV ads.
“I’m looking for someone who is not your everyday politician,” Scipio said. “A breath of fresh air in Washington.”
Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund executive, had put a special emphasis on South Carolina, drowning the airwaves with more than $19 million in TV ads and more paid staffers in the state than any other contender.
Striding across a stage lined with supporters, Steyer told the crowd he was suspending his run for president but had “zero regrets” about his campaign.
“We were disappointed with where we came out,” Steyer said. “Honestly, I can’t see a path where I can win the presidency.”
Some Republicans frustrated by Trump were drawn to the Democratic field, too. Martin Arant of Lexington usually votes for Republicans and said he’s likely to support Trump in November. But he said he was particularly intrigued by Warren, who didn’t make the state a priority.
“I would love to see Elizabeth Warren be the top dog and fight Trump,” he said. “I think she is down-to-earth; a good lady. It would make me think really hard about who to vote for.”
After a neck-and-neck finish in Iowa and victories in Iowa and Nevada, Sanders’ camp had hoped for an upset victory earlier in the week. But as polls showed Biden’s lead widening, his advisers hoped to narrow the former vice president’s margins and prove that Sanders can win in a state where he was steamrolled in 2016.
His campaign never fully recovered from that humbling defeat four years ago, fueled by black voters who overwhelmingly backed Clinton. This cycle, Sanders has more aggressively courted voters of color while also maintaining his grip on the core of liberal voters who backed him in 2016.
“He’s just never changed his values; he’s been consistent,” said Casper Cilia, who attended a Columbia rally for Sanders on Friday. “He cares about marginalized people. He cares about veterans. He cares about poor people.”
