Democrats come to terms with the inevitable: mandatory victory for Biden in South Carolina, President Hage Geingob of Namibia is dead

No surprise in South Carolina: Joe Biden won the Democratic Party’s first official primaries on Saturday. The president, who wants to be confirmed for a second term in November, won about 96 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results. In doing so, he surpassed his competitors, activist Marianne Williamson and MP Dean Phillips.

Anything other than a clear victory for Biden would have been a sensation, even if the president had abandoned a joint election campaign in the southern state. (He spent election night on the other side of the country, in California.) Instead, he fielded high-ranking Democrats, like Vice President Kamala Harris, who were supposed to generate enthusiasm, especially among the African-American electorate. There is fear among Biden’s party friends that many loyal Democratic voters will not want to vote for the president again because they are disappointed with his work.

Low turnout in the South Carolina primary will further fuel these fears. In 2020, more than 539,000 people participated in the Democratic vote. This time, fewer than 135,000 voters cast their ballots.

However, there is another attempt to explain this lack of interest: the Republican primaries, which take place in three weeks and promise more excitement than the Democratic race. You should know that voters in South Carolina are not registered by party. So you can spontaneously decide whether you want to participate in the Democratic primaries or the Republican primaries. (Both are not possible, the law prohibits this.)

Haley is pursuing Democratic votes

In her election campaign against former President Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley recently targeted voters who were willing to change and who may have participated in the Democratic primaries in recent years. The 52-year-old is relying on the votes of moderate Americans if she wants to defeat Trump in the primaries.

On the other hand, Haley is no stranger to South Carolina: she ruled the state as governor from 2011 to 2017, positioning herself right of center at the time. Many Democrats have not forgiven her for that. Jay Parmley, a senior local Democratic Party official, is an opponent of this strategy. “This is stupid,” Parmley recently told the publication Politico. It is the job of Republican voters to stop Trump.

At this point, however, it doesn’t look like the Republican base wants to stop the 77-year-old ex-president. Current polls in South Carolina point to another landslide victory for Trump. Depending on the survey, he has a lead over Haley of 26 to 40 percentage points. She is languishing at about 32 percent of the vote, far from a possible victory. Haley recently said she wanted to top the New Hampshire primary results in her home state. Trump won the small east coast state last month by an 11-point margin. He received 54 percent of the votes, Haley 43 percent.

For the Democrats, on the other hand, 81-year-old Biden is considered established. Rumors that Democrats wanted to replace the presidential candidate in a cloak-and-dagger operation are just rumors. The name Michelle Obama keeps coming up in this context. The 60-year-old wife of former President Barack Obama has so far rejected all attempts to enter high politics herself. “I have no passion,” she always says. (aargauerzeitung.ch)