America’s number one was on the move when he won the first Democratic primary without significant opposition. Joe Biden is spending this weekend at fundraising galas in California and Nevada, far away in the Southwest. He had recently graced South Carolina in the southeast. The day before this somewhat one-sided primary in this state, Kamala Harris, America’s number two, rose to the podium. The Biden/Harris duo are running together again.
On election day, Saturday, the Democratic electorate in South Carolina gave their leading candidate Biden 96 percent, i.e. almost all of the 120,000 votes cast. That was even better for the winner than the 64 percent recently in New Hampshire. The difference: Here he is an official candidate, there supporters were only allowed to write his name unofficially on the ballot paper. In any case, Biden has no serious rivals from his own ranks for his candidacy; MP Dean Phillips from Minnesota and the author Marianne Williamson (both around two percent) are, as usual, staff. For now, Nikki Haley is getting on Donald Trump’s Republican nerves a lot more.
Commander-in-Chief Biden is currently primarily concerned with the US attacks in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, but this premiere is still important to him. South Carolina was his start on the road to a showdown for power. The November elections are “a mission,” Biden said during a stop in Delaware, his PR headquarters. “We must, we cannot, we must not lose, for the good of the country. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. It’s not about me, it goes far beyond me.”
The vote on Friday afternoon took place on the grounds of South Carolina State University in Orangeburg without Biden – in a historic location with a predominantly African-American student body. During the civil rights movement, police officers shot three students and injured 27 others on campus in February 1968. The victims had protested against racial segregation at a bowling alley.
Democratic Chairman Jamie Harrison also recalled that 40 percent of slaves once arrived in the port of Charleston. Beautiful Charleston, now popular with gourmets, is an hour’s drive away. The shooting at Fort Sumter in the bay in front of the port city initiated the American Civil War on April 12, 1861.
“I wouldn’t be here without the Democratic voters of South Carolina.”
In February 2024, after a drumbeat, Biden’s deputy Harris took the floor. “It was South Carolina that put President Joe Biden and me on the path to the White House,” she said. “I wouldn’t be here without the Democratic voters of South Carolina,” Biden said a week earlier in the regional capital of Columbia. “You are the reason I am president.” At the end of February 2020 in South Carolina, Biden was the winner of a primary election for the first time, after losing to Bernie Sanders and in some cases others in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
At the height of the pandemic, people here showed “that your voice has power,” said Harris, the daughter of a US-Indian mother and a US-Jamaican father. That’s why Biden is president. “And I am the first woman and the first black woman to be vice president of the United States.”
It should be like this again four years later. “Now, in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again,” Biden announced as the polls closed, “and I have no doubt that you have put us on the path to winning the presidency again – and make Donald Trump a loser again.”
Fear of the “land of disorder, fear and hatred”
South Carolina was allowed to start with the Democrats this time; it was the expected effortless start for Biden. “First in the Nation,” read the blue Biden-Harris poster. The Democrats got ahead of the Republicans, even though this southern state is bright red Republican and is also the home of Republican Nikki Haley. “Hard truth,” was read on a Haley truck outside the university. “We’re going to have a female president. It’s going to be either Nikki Haley or Kamala Harris. Trump can’t beat Biden, and Biden won’t finish his term.”
This is a theory that is as popular as it is daring; Kamala Harris is more likely to fear Trump’s comeback. She recently told ABC that she was “scared to death” by the possibility that Trump could win. For them, the attempt to spare the USA from exactly that began in South Carolina. During her talk, she raved about the high-speed internet that her government has provided and about $136 billion in student tuition debt that is to be forgiven despite Republican opposition.
She spoke of the commitment to these universities, called “Historically black colleges and universities.” Americans continue to use the word “black” when referring to skin color. This is still important for the Democrats; more than half of their supporters in South Carolina have African-American roots.
Or this: “Please raise your hand if you have a family member with diabetes,” Harris shouted. Many hands went up, including hers. Biden and she had it “with it Big Pharma and we have kept the cost of insulin for our seniors at $35 per month.”
Speaker Harris said that more than 14.4 million jobs were created among them and salaries were increased. Many Americans are less enthusiastic about high prices, even though the US economy is actually growing rapidly. But Harris also warned of the worst if Trump, with his proximity to extremists and dictators, were to sit in the Oval Office again. It’s about Biden’s “land of freedom and the rule of law” and Trump’s “land of disorder, fear and hate.”
After barely 20 minutes her express speech was over, no big performance. Kamala Harris, 59, was once considered Biden’s natural successor, but for now her unremarkable record is more of one of his problems. She still had a home game at the liberal South Carolina State University with many African Americans.
The future of the country is at stake, “everything,” said a history student and first-time voter. What Kamala Harris says sounds “so natural to her black people” like her. The mistake with Trump shouldn’t happen again, “we have to learn from history.” Biden’s age? He’s 81. “We’ll rock with him as long as he rocks,” answered the future historian. Two other students are still undecided who they should vote for in the fall. A third, also 18, would like to see President Harris, “that would change our lives,” but well, she grew up with Biden, so to speak.
Biden and Harris cannot be separated, says Delano Whitfield, “they are like twins.” Like in 2020, he will vote for Biden again. Whitfield is 23, studies communications and to celebrate the day wore a white suit with a bow tie and a kind of red stole with the title: “Mister State South Carolina University 2024.” This young man has already won his election, the old man probably has another nine months to go.