With 99% of the precincts reporting, Biden had 49% of the vote and Sanders was a distant second with 20%, according to official state results. Billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who has now quit the race, had 11% and all of the other contenders were well behind with single digits.
Edison Research estimated 530,000 votes were cast in the Democratic primary, well ahead of the 371,000 cast in 2016 and about the same number as 2008.
The decisive win gives Biden a burst of momentum in the Democratic race to challenge Republican President Donald Trump, which broadens quickly with Super Tuesday primaries in 14 states in three days that will award one-third of the available national delegates.
It was the first presidential primary win ever for Biden, who is making his third run at the White House.
He immediately took aim at Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont and self-described democratic socialist whose surging campaign and calls for a political revolution have rattled a Democratic establishment worried he is too far left to beat Trump in November.
“Democrats want a nominee who is a Democrat,” Biden told cheering supporters in Columbia, South Carolina, in a jab at Sanders. “Win big or lose, that’s the choice. Most Americans don’t want the promise of a revolution. They want more than promises they want results.”
Biden beat Sanders among a wide range of demographic and ideological groups, including those who said they were “very liberal,” according to Edison Research exit polls. The polls showed Biden, vice president under former President Barack Obama, with 61% of African-American support to Sanders’ 17%.
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In the wake of his decisive victory, Biden was endorsed by Terry McAuliffe, a former governor of Virginia and ex-chair of the Democratic National Committee, and U.S. Representative Bobby Scott, an influential African-American lawmaker from Virginia – a possible sign the Democratic establishment was starting to coalesce around his candidacy.
Biden must now hope a flurry of media attention and his name recognition will help him in Super Tuesday states, where Sanders’ prolific fundraising has helped him build bigger organizations and broadcast far more advertisements. Sanders leads opinion polls in delegate-rich California, where 3 million early votes have already been cast.
Biden and all of the other Democratic contenders also will face competition for the first time on Super Tuesday from billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has blanketed the country with half a billion dollars in advertising. Bloomberg skipped the first four state primaries.
But at least five states – Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Virginia – have big blocs of African-American voters that could help Biden make a comeback.
Biden’s dominance in South Carolina raised questions about the continued viability of most of the other contenders. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar all were well behind in the state and have dwindling chances to mount a comeback.
As the vote count rolled in on Saturday night, Steyer, who had spent heavily in South Carolina to court African-American voters, ended his presidential bid as it emerged he was coming in a distant third.
Biden desperately needed a win after poor showings in the first two nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire and a second-place finish in Nevada. He had viewed South Carolina, where his popularity among the state’s big bloc of black voters proved decisive, as his firewall against disaster.
The resounding margin could slow the momentum of Sanders, who had grown stronger with each contest, finishing in a virtual tie for first in Iowa with Buttigieg, before notching wins in New Hampshire and Nevada.
“You cannot win them all,” Sanders told supporters in Virginia Beach, Virginia. “This will not be the only defeat. There are a lot of states in this country and nobody wins them all.”
A candidate needs at least 1,991 delegates to win the nomination outright at the party’s convention in July.
AFP