In South Carolina, Biden and Harris are testing tough policies for black voters

As Democrats increase their concerns about President Biden’s standing with black voters, South Carolina has emerged as a testing ground for his campaign: one where he can test his message with a predominantly black electorate and use it as a largely ceremonial launching pad for his re-election. .

At events in recent days, both Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris offered reverent, policy-intensive reelection pitches to a largely Black audience and celebrated the Black organizers and community leaders who helped deliver the White House to Democrats, starting with those in the Palmetto stands.

They also contrasted with former President Donald J. Trump and other Republican leaders, whose election denial and efforts to “whitewash” history, they said, threaten the progress Black Americans have fought for for generations.

Black voters have expressed frustration with the Biden administration for failing to deliver on key campaign promises and have shown less enthusiasm for Biden’s re-election in polls and interviews. But in South Carolina, both Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris wanted to highlight the lesser-known victories their administration has won over the past three years, and argued that a second term would allow them to accomplish even more. Black voters’ dissatisfaction with Democrats, campaign aides and allies argue, is rooted in their lack of awareness of the White House’s performance rather than fundamental flaws with the Biden-Harris ticket.

“People don’t understand exactly what role the president has,” said Sen. Tameika Isaac-Devine, who was elected to her seat in the Columbia region on Jan. 3. “But when you break down the policy ‘because of this act’, you’re able to get point point point point point, ‘I think we need to do a better job there.

According to campaign officials, their visits were the first of several they will make before the state’s Feb. 3 primary. Their presence was reassuring to many of South Carolina’s lifelong black Democrats, who fear that black voters nationally will not turn out in large numbers in November, handing the election to Mr. Trump, the dominant Republican front-runner nomination.

Carolyn Reynolds Brown, a retired school counselor from Charleston, S.C., attended the event Saturday wearing a pink and green jacket emblazoned with the Greek letters Alpha Kappa Alpha, the same fraternity to which Ms. Harris belongs. She welcomed Ms. Harris’ visit, saying the Democratic ticket’s increased presence in the state could help voters get back on their feet and counter a troubling theme she has noticed in American politics.

“A lot of things that are happening in our country right now seem to be really wreaking havoc in taking us back,” she said, pointing to herself while using “us” to refer to Black Americans. “As a race, it is necessary for us to vote. It is imperative that we are involved.”

Standing in the pulpit of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, where a white gunman killed nine Black parishioners in 2015, Mr. Biden denounced the “poison” of white supremacy that he said had “taken this nation apart torn” during the Civil War and Jim Crow eras. The United States, he said, was in “an era of the second lost cause” that could bring about a return of that same racist violence. But where multiracial democracy was once again at stake, Biden argued, black voters had a chance to save it.

“It is because of this community and the Black community of South Carolina and — no exaggeration — Jim Clyburn, that I stand here today as your president,” he said, referring to Rep. James E. Clyburn, a staunch Biden ally and the secretary of state . most influential democrat.

Ms. Harris expressed a similar sentiment in a keynote address at Emanuel’s Women’s Missionary Society’s annual retreat on Saturday. Recalling the campaign four years ago, she told the group of Black women, which included many of the voters who helped elect Democrats in 2020, that “you came out to vote, and you organized your friends, relatives and neighbors to do the same. .”

“I am of course here to thank you for your work, your leadership and your vision of what is possible in our country,” she continued.

Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris included several specific policy points in their speeches to emphasize that their administration has indeed delivered results for Black Americans. They highlighted the record low black unemployment rate and large-scale investments in historically black colleges and universities. Mr. Clyburn, who sat behind the president in the Emanuel pulpit on Monday, underscored Mr. Biden’s efforts to reduce student loan debt and his appointment of a record number of Black judges to the federal bench during his presidency — appointments, said he, including Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in the Supreme Court.

‘We know Joep. But more importantly, Joe knows us,” Mr. Clyburn told the 700-plus-member congregation, repeating the words he told South Carolina voters four years ago in a statement of support that boosted the president’s flagging campaign. Reviving. Mr. Biden rewarded the state by redistricting the presidential primaries so that South Carolina came first.

Democrats have invested heavily in South Carolina in recent weeks, hiring senior advisers and field staff to bolster the president’s reelection campaign even as battleground states have yet to build strong organizations. In the coming weeks, Ms. Harris and several Democratic surrogates will return to the state to try to stoke enthusiasm among black and rural voters. Ms. Harris will celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday next week from the State Capitol in Columbia, along with Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other national Democrats.

Still, Mr. Biden will face a bigger challenge that will appeal to younger voters of color, who have shown more openness to backing a Republican in November or staying home altogether. For some South Carolina Democrats, highlighting the administration’s achievements is unlikely to be enough to generate enthusiasm among this bloc. Instead, more targeted messaging will be needed – and not necessarily from those at the top of the ticket.

“I think it’s less about Black voters not understanding the policy,” said state Rep. JA Moore, a North Charleston Democrat whose sister was killed at Emanuel AME. “I think so: Are there messengers at the national level in the Democratic Party that are galvanizing the electorate to take action?”

Mr. Moore plans to join Democratic surrogates in his statewide campaign to encourage younger, more reluctant voters to turn out. “It won’t be enough to say, ‘We did this,’” he added later. “I think it’s a style thing.”