Biden wins his first primary in South Carolina, where his 2020 campaign began

President Biden won the South Carolina primary on Saturday, giving him the kind of emphatic result he undoubtedly envisioned when he made the state the first contest on the Democrats' presidential nominating calendar.

The election, called by The Associated Press shortly after polls closed, gives Biden the first set of delegates needed to claim the Democratic nomination at the party convention in August.

Mr. Biden promised that South Carolina would send him to the White House again.

“The people of South Carolina have spoken again, and I have no doubt that you have put us on the path to winning the presidency again – and making Donald Trump a loser once again,” the president said in a statement from his campaign.

Mr. Biden won overwhelmingly among Democrats in South Carolina, more than 96 percent, with 80 percent of the votes counted — dominating every county with more than 95 percent of the vote, including in heavily black areas.

His campaign wanted South Carolina to prove that the party's base — particularly Black voters — would remain committed to Mr. Biden and turn out for him in large numbers. The state's open primary system means voters are free to choose which primaries they want to vote in, and the stakes are much higher in the Republican battle between Trump and Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina — and there was some concern among party officials about voters waiting to enter that contest on Feb. 24.

Black voters are critical to Biden's success in battleground states, but converting South Carolina's results in the February to November elections in Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia is a tricky proposition as Saturday's primaries are dominated by most observers were watched – rightly so, as it turned out. – as non-competitive.

The primary was on track to draw about 150,000 votes, at the low end of the primary vote on the eve of the primary for Representative James E. Clyburn, Mr. Biden's top surrogate in South Carolina, whose 2020 endorsement sent him to the nomination helped. The Biden campaign itself studiously avoided making public predictions about how many Democrats would vote in Saturday's primaries.

There is little data against which to measure Saturday's Democratic turnout.

The last time an incumbent Democratic president sought re-election, in 2012, President Barack Obama went unchallenged in South Carolina – and the state did not hold primaries.

Four years later, when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defeated Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the state's primary, 370,864 people voted. In 2020, with no competitive Republican primaries and twelve Democrats on the ballot, 536,949 people voted.

The Democratic Party of South Carolina said early voting data showed the share of Black voters in the electorate was 13 percent higher than in 2020, when people of color made up about half of voters in the Democratic primary and there was no Republican primary to to be transferred. voters.

In 2016, the last year in which both parties held presidential primaries in South Carolina, voters of color made up two-thirds of Democratic primary voters.

Christale Spain, the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, led much of the state party's organizing efforts. Late Saturday, she said she felt “very encouraged” by the state's early voting numbers, which showed more than 51,000 voters had cast early Democratic primary ballots. She also added a caveat about voters' excitement about Mr. Biden.

“We may not see that enthusiasm, but they are mission-driven,” she said of South Carolina Democrats. “They know this is a choice between progress and regression and between freedom and anti-freedom.”

By moving South Carolina from the party's fourth election to its first, Mr. Biden increased the influence of black voters in choosing the Democratic nominee and isolated himself from potential primary challengers in a state that saved his 2020 campaign and propelled him to the White House.

There wasn't much drama on Saturday night. Within 30 minutes of the polls closing, The Associated Press called the primary for Mr. Biden, his campaign distributed its victory declaration and a watch party organized by the South Carolina Democratic Party in Columbia began to close.

Unlike in New Hampshire, where a Biden challenger is a representative Dean Phillips from Minnesota – had spent millions on his campaign, the president had South Carolina almost all to himself. The state's voters offered only a modicum of support to Mr. Phillips and Marianne Williamson, the author who also ran a quixotic presidential campaign in 2020.

About 64 percent of Democratic voters in New Hampshire wrote Mr. Biden's name on the ballot, adding to evidence that the party's base is behind him.

The Biden campaign had viewed the South Carolina primary as a key contest, even though the Republican-leaning state is unlikely to become a general election battleground. The campaign hired four paid staffers in the state, devoting resources to an uncompetitive state before doing so in general election battleground states such as Arizona and Pennsylvania. And South Carolina's Democratic Party has been working for months to increase turnout to maintain its new place in the primary.

At a news conference after the race was called for Mr. Biden, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, a South Carolina native, said he was “extremely ecstatic” about the turnout numbers.

Mr. Clyburn, who in his speech on Saturday refrained from any analysis of the turnout figures posted thus far, argued that Mr. Biden's victory had ramifications beyond South Carolina.

“This is about keeping this country on the path to a more perfect union,” he said to applause.

At the end of the evening, both Ms. Spain and Mr. Harrison expressed confidence that South Carolina would maintain its status as the nation's first for Democrats.

“What is the state motto: 'As I breathe I hope'?” said Mr. Harrison. “I'm going to do everything I can to make sure of that.”