South Carolina held its first official Democratic presidential primary on Saturday. But when the polls closed, President Biden was 2,400 miles away, in Los Angeles, getting off Air Force One.
Biden's victory in the Palmetto State was a foregone conclusion, and his campaign spent a lot of time there before the primary.
So Biden headed west. He and first lady Jill Biden landed at LAX around 3:30 p.m. Saturday and were greeted by Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Maxine Waters before the president headed by helicopter to the Santa Monica airport and his wife departed. separately for one event.
It's unclear what they did while in Los Angeles. They had no public events and no fundraisers were known to be taking place.
Biden held an afternoon campaign meeting at a historic Bel Air estate owned by director George Lucas. Jill Biden spoke Saturday night at a gala at Paramount Studios in Hollywood in support of a nonprofit calling on retailers to commit 15% of their shelf space to brands owned by Black businesses.
Biden's son Hunter lives in Malibu and turns 54 on Sunday. Hunter Biden is a favorite target of the president's Republican critics and faces federal tax charges.
Biden's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Unsurprisingly, Republicans complained about Biden's decision not to visit South Carolina on Saturday, which they claimed was a snub by the incumbent.
“It just shows how much he cares about coming and how seriously he's taking it,” said Abby Zilch, spokeswoman for the South Carolina Republican Party. “He and Kamala have spent the last three months coming to South Carolina, telling South Carolina Democratic voters how much they are grateful for their party here and how much South Carolina means to them. However, I was on the other side of the country on the day of the first Democratic primary.”
Shortly after Air Force One landed at Los Angeles International Airport, news emerged that Biden had easily won the South Carolina primary.
The state salvaged its 2020 presidential campaign after it was defeated in Iowa and New Hampshire and finished a distant second in Nevada. The endorsement of Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and the enthusiastic support of Black voters in the state gave Biden a landslide victory and gave him momentum heading into the Super Tuesday primaries, which were critical to his became the Democratic candidate.
In exchange, the Democratic National Committee, at Biden's behest, revised the 2024 nomination calendar, officially making South Carolina the first state to hold a primary. The move was apparently intended to give a greater voice to diverse voters in the early stages of the race, compared to the caucuses and primaries in overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire; It was largely seen as a gift to South Carolina for saving Biden's 2020 campaign.
The president, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, have spent considerable time in South Carolina promoting Biden's campaign.
On Friday, Harris spoke to supporters at South Carolina State University, a historically black university. After banging a drum, Harris was introduced by the reigning Miss South Carolina State and touted the administration's efforts to cancel student loan debt, limit insulin costs and boost the economy.
“President Biden and I are guided by a fundamental belief: we work for you, the American people. And every day we fight for you,” he said. “Unfortunately, however, that is not true for everyone. Specific case: Donald Trump. Former President Trump has made it clear time and time again: his fight is not for the people. “He fights for himself.”
Scott Huffmon, a political science professor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, noted the frequency of visits by Democrats and their surrogates, including Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who visited his home county on Friday.
“This is a payback for what South Carolina did for Joe Biden, but on a larger scale, South Carolina is so amazingly important to the national Democratic presidential process that maintaining this close and warm relationship is incredibly important,” Huffmon said.
He added that he doesn't think most Palmetto State Democrats would have a problem with Biden spending primary night in Los Angeles, given South Carolina's rightward tilt in the general election. Trump easily won the state in the 2020 presidential election. The last time a Democrat won there in the general election was in 1976, and the candidate was a fellow Southerner, Jimmy Carter.
“He has paid his loyalty. He's done the bowing and curtsying of it, and now the realism begins. He’s not going to win South Carolina in November,” Huffmon said. “So the payment of the debt has occurred. “Now reality comes.”
In fact, on Sunday, Biden heads to campaign events in Nevada, where his Democratic primary will be held on Tuesday and is central to his re-election bid.
