VP Harris, Top Black Democrats Stump for Biden in South Carolina

A day before South Carolina’s open Democratic primary, Vice President Kamala Harris made the case for President Joe Biden and against former President Donald Trump at South Carolina State University (SCSU), a historically black college and university (HBCU).

“HBCUs are centers of academic excellence,” said Ms. Harris, a graduate of Howard University, another HBCU.

“In South Carolina, it was South Carolina that put President Joe Biden and me on the path to the White House,” she said. Under the Biden administration, Democrats have attempted to move South Carolina to the front of the party’s primary schedule.

She also took aim at President Trump, arguing that “he fights for himself.”

Even as Republicans accuse Democrats of weaponizing the Department of Justice against conservatives, the vice president alleged that President Trump has said he has an “intention to weaponize the Department of Justice.”

“There are extremists across our country who have been inspired, encouraged, and even cowed by the former president,” she said.

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Early voting in the Democratic primary started on Jan. 22. On Feb. 3, primary day, the polls will open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. South Carolina’s primary is open, meaning that all registered voters in the state can participate. But anyone who votes in the Democratic contest cannot then participate in the Republican primary later this month, which pits former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley against President Trump.

Clyburn, Harrison, and Others Speak

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), an SCSU alumnus, was among the influential black Democrats who spoke out ahead of the vice president. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, another South Carolinian, was also among the speakers.

He likened the events of Jan. 6, 2021, to the contested presidential election of 1876, saying that the election of Rutherford B. Hayes in that contest was ultimately responsible for the end of the post-Civil War Reconstruction. He noted that the protracted process of deciding that election ultimately came down to a single vote.

“Jim Crow came to begin with one vote. One vote could very well decide what our future is,” said Mr. Clyburn, the sole Democrat in South Carolina’s congressional delegation and his party’s longtime whip in the House of Representatives.

The incumbent president wasn’t on the ballot in New Hampshire, but a write-in campaign put together in the months ahead of the primary allowed him to notch just under 64 percent of the vote. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), his closest competitor, got 19.6 percent, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Before that, Iowa’s Democratic Party began mailing out presidential preference cards on Jan. 12, a few days before Republicans’ Jan. 15 Caucus in the state. But Iowa Democrat preferences won’t be released until Super Tuesday, March 5, allowing South Carolina to come first, though with an asterisk.

Earlier in the day, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) headlined a small Trump campaign event in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, at the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum. She first took aim not at the incumbent president but rather at Ms. Haley, President Trump’s chief Republican competitor in the Palmetto State’s Feb. 24 Republican primary. Top Republicans in the state have generally favored President Trump over their former state leader.

“We don’t need Republicans who are going to be just like Democrats when it comes to fiscal policy and raising our taxes,” she said in front of a small but enthusiastic crowd of Trump supporters.

She went on to critique President Biden’s foreign policy, arguing that the war in Ukraine would not have occurred on President Trump’s watch.

Trump Has Fans at Historically Black College

For decades, black voters have been a pillar of the Democrats’ electoral coalition.

Former Rep. Bakari Sellers (D-S.C.), now a CNN analyst, drew attention to that heritage in his speech ahead of Vice President Harris’s remarks, saying he “stand[s] on the shoulders” of everyone from civil rights activist Medgar Evers to Trayvon Martin.

DNC chair Harrison argued that President Biden had presided over concrete wins for black Americans, citing the president’s selection of Ketanji Brown Jackson as a Supreme Court associate justice `after pledging to pick a black woman for the position while campaigning in the Palmetto State. He also drew attention to the large number of black female judges (35) and black judges (60) President Biden has appointed to the federal judiciary. African American judges make up over one-third of his 170 appointees to the bench.

“Black folk only make up 13 percent of the population. So he’s trying to make up for the injustices that took place in the past,” Mr. Harrison said.

But some who spoke with The Epoch Times at the college on Feb. 2 voiced opinions in line with black voters widely reported to be drifting to the Republican Party, which was originally founded as a bulwark against the expansion of slavery in the years before the Civil War.

“Trump 2024. Bring Donnie back,” said Raymond James, an SCSU student.

He rejected the narrative that black voters are all in for President Biden. Mr. James believes he has failed on the issue of war, citing conflicts now escalating around the world.

“It’s getting out of hand,” he said.

Mariah Coe, another SCSU student, had a very different perspective on the two candidates.

“I’m gonna be honest. [In] the 2020 election, people were just so eager for Trump to be out of office,” she told The Epoch Times.

Ms. Haley’s talk of raising the retirement age for at least some Americans worries her.

“She’s [Haley’s] not going to win,” Ms. Coe said.

Junior Boseman, also an SCSU student, said inflation and high gas prices were two of his concerns.

But President Trump isn’t his guy. He said he wasn’t paying too much attention to the national race, noting that he was not aware of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s running as an Independent.

T.J. Johnson, who was standing beside Mr. Boseman in the student union, said he loved the current vice president. But he also voiced a more positive view of President Trump than Mr. Boseman.

“He’s a great guy,” he said. “I haven’t really been seeing much of anything about the race online, so I haven’t been too much in tune to him.”

The 18-year-old student is excited to cast his first ballot soon. Though still a novice, he’s already absorbed one of the central lessons of American politics.

“Everyone has their own opinions,” he said.