“President Biden and I are counting on you,” Vice President Kamala Harris told the crowd during a “get out the vote” rally at South Carolina State University on Friday (Saturday AEDT).
Ron Horne voting in the Democratic primaries in South Carolina.Credit: Farrah Tomazin
Retired teacher Ron Horne heeded the call and voted for Biden because he viewed the president as “an honourable man”. But he also raised concerns about what might happen if the president, who is now 81, suddenly had to withdraw from the race.
“Unfortunately, the vice president isn’t very popular, so you’d think they would have an alternative candidate in mind just in case, but it doesn’t seem to be that way,” Horne told this masthead.
“I also worry about what might happen if Trump gets in again. This country has never been more divided.”
Former party official Chris Salley, however, decided not to vote in the primary contest all, and is likely to use his vote in November to pick a longshot third-party candidate over Trump or Biden: progressive activist Cornel West.
Salley used to be the chair of the Anderson County Democratic Party in South Carolina, but quit his post in October due to concerns about Biden’s response to the war in Gaza, the president’s age, and what he sees as undemocratic processes in the primary race.
“It’s the election nobody wanted, but everybody’s getting,” says former Democrat Chris Salley.
“Instead of South Carolina being first in a competitive primary, we ended up being first in a coronation,” he told this masthead, citing the lack of debates or town hall events despite changes making South Carolina the campaign’s first official Democratic Party primary.
“We weren’t elevated to first-in-the-nation to actually be heard,” the 31-year-old said. “We were here to protect the President.”
Biden’s victory puts him one step closer to being announced as the presidential nominee at the Democratic National Convention in August.
All eyes are now on South Carolina’s Republican primary on February 24, when the state’s former governor Nikki Haley is once again taking on Trump for a shot at the presidential nomination.
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The former UN ambassador faces an uphill battle after coming third in the Iowa caucuses and then trailing Trump by 11 points in the New Hampshire primaries.
She has stepped up her attacks in recent days, highlighting everything from Trump’s age and verbal gaffes, to his legal woes and “temper tantrums”.
“I am not going anywhere,” she said on Thursday. “We have a country to save. And I am determined to keep on going the entire way. As long as we can keep closing that gap, I’m gonna keep staying in.”
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