Voting Open in Anderson Saturday for Democratic Primary

Observer and Wire Reports

Polls are open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday at the Anderson County Board of Registration and Elections, 301 North Main Street, Anderson, for the South Carolina Democratic Presidential Preference Primary.

President Joe Biden is looking for an easy win in the primary that officially kicks off his party's nominating process today, validating a new lineup he championed to better empower Black voters who helped revive his once-foundering 2020 campaign.

Biden is overwhelmingly favored against Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson. Yet the long and sometimes contentious process that saw the Democratic National Committee officially replace Iowa with South Carolina in its presidential primary's leadoff spot has made what's unfolding noteworthy.

The GOP’s South Carolina primary won’t be held until Feb. 24.

Arguing that voters of color should play a larger role in determining the Democratic presidential nominee, Biden championed a calendar beginning in South Carolina. The state is reliably Republican, but 26% of its residents are Black.

"South Carolina, you are the first primary in the nation and President Biden and I are counting on you,” Harris said Friday during a campaign stop at historically Black South Carolina State in Orangeburg, after the president and first lady Jill Biden had also recently campaigned in the state.

In the 2020 general election, Black voters made up 11% of the national electorate, and 9 in 10 of them supported Biden, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of that election's voters.

Biden pushed for South Carolina to go first followed three days later by Nevada. The new calendar also moves the Democratic primary of Michigan, a large and diverse swing state, to Feb. 27, before the expansive field of states voting on March 5, known as Super Tuesday.

South Carolina was also where Biden reversed his fortunes with a resounding victory during the 2020 Democratic primary after defeats in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Many Black Democrats in South Carolina are still loyal to Biden after he was No. 2 to the nation's first Black president, Barack Obama. The state's senior congressman, Democrat Jim Clyburn, long one of Congress' most powerful Black leaders, remains a close Biden friend and ally.

“I wouldn’t be here without the Democratic voters of South Carolina, and that’s a fact,” Biden said at the state's Democratic Party’s “First-in-the-Nation” celebration dinner last weekend. “You’re the reason I am president."