US President Joe Biden takes a first electoral test on Saturday with the black electorate during the Democratic primaries in South Carolina, where he hopes to create momentum in the face of Donald Trump’s meteoric rise in the Republican camp before the election of november.
Mr. Biden is almost guaranteed to win this first vote in his party’s nomination race which is taking place in an explosive context in the Middle East, in the wake of strikes against elite Iranian forces and pro-Iranian groups. in Iraq and Syria, in retaliation for the deaths of American soldiers in Jordan.
But the participation rate will be closely scrutinized: the African-American electorate had already allowed Joe Biden to save his campaign during the primaries in this state in the southeast of the United States before propelling him to the White House. If they ignore him on Saturday, the Democrats would have reason to worry.
The 81-year-old president will only have two strong adversaries: Minnesota MP Dean Phillips, heir to a wealthy ice cream company, and Marianne Williamson, author of best-selling books on personal development.
Several recent polls have shown that the support of the black electorate for Joe Biden is crumbling, particularly among young people, who believe they were not heard enough during his mandate.
Although South Carolina is expected to remain in Republican hands in the November presidential election, as it has since 1980, Mr. Biden has made clear that he views the state as an important test. He has already been there twice since the start of the year.
“I think the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been, you know, people are talking about our democracy being under attack,” said Samuel Bias, 31, a Biden supporter, after a town hall meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris on the eve of the primary.
“We are counting on you”
“In South Carolina, you are going to have the first primary in the country and President Biden, like myself, we are counting on you,” launched Mme Harris Friday during a fiery speech in Orangeburg.
“We are counting on you to vote and encourage everyone you know to vote, to send text messages, to knock on doors and to make your voice heard,” she insisted.
Mme Harris, the first black woman vice-president in US history, also launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump.
“For years, the former president stoked the fires of hatred, bigotry, racism and xenophobia for his own power and personal political gain,” she said. A message relayed by the influential black Democratic elected official Jim Clyburn, whose support helped to relaunch Mr. Biden’s campaign in 2020.
The results of the primary, expected after 7 p.m. local time, will make it possible to say whether Mr. Biden’s strategy, which focused on the threat to democracy posed, according to him, by the American billionaire, will bear fruit.
According to a survey New York Times/If in November, 71% of black voters in six key states would support Mr. Biden – up from 91% in the 2020 election – and 22% would vote for Mr. Trump.
“I was a Democrat for 20 years. I even participated in the Obama campaign,” said Regina Sidik, 56, a black caregiver who attended a news conference of the former president’s supporters in Columbia, the state capital. , this week. “But today, after seeing what this world will become, I opt for Trump,” she confides.
The Republican primary promises to be more spectacular than that of the Democrats in South Carolina, where Mr. Trump will try to deal a fatal blow to the former governor of the state and former American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, on his territory.
