South Carolina Democratic primary early results: Joe Biden projected to win

For­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden appears to be on the verge of win­ning a Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nat­ing event for the first time.

Polls have closed in South Car­oli­na (although any­one who is cur­rent­ly still in line to vote will be allowed to vote!) and mass media net­works are pro­ject­ing that Biden will coast to a com­fort­able vic­to­ry in the Pal­met­to State.

Three fifths of black vot­ers in South Car­oli­na backed Biden in exit polling shared by Steve Kor­nac­ki of NBC News, while Bernie Sanders received the sup­port of 17% of black vot­ers, up slight­ly from 14% in 2016.

At least twen­ty of South Car­oli­na’s fifty-four nation­al con­ven­tion del­e­gates are expect­ed to go to Biden at this junc­ture, vault­ing Biden past Pete Buttigieg in the over­all del­e­gate race, behind fron­trun­ner Bernie Sanders.

Biden could end up with more than twen­ty out of fifty-four nation­al del­e­gates, but twen­ty appears to be the min­i­mum num­ber of del­e­gates he will get.

Pri­or to tonight, only Iowa, New Hamp­shire and Neva­da had held nom­i­nat­ing events. All are rel­a­tive­ly small states with small pools of nation­al con­ven­tion del­e­gates. And of those three, only Neva­da had a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of non­white vot­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in its nom­i­nat­ing event.

Sanders pulled off his most con­vinc­ing win in Neva­da after hav­ing won very nar­row­ly in Iowa and some­what nar­row­ly in New Hampshire.

Tonight, how­ev­er, belongs to Joe Biden. After hav­ing failed to do well in either Iowa or New Hamp­shire, Biden man­aged to secure sec­ond place in the Sil­ver State and has now notched his first win in a nom­i­nat­ing event.

Many pun­dits are say­ing that this is now mor­ph­ing into a two-way race between Biden and Sanders. How­ev­er, Super Tues­day is just hours away, so there will not be much time for fall­out from South Car­oli­na before a whop­ping four­teen states weigh in, includ­ing Cal­i­for­nia, the biggest del­e­gate prize of all. A third of the del­e­gates up for grabs on Tues­day will be from the Gold­en State.

Biden’s recent fundrais­ing has been very slug­gish, lead­ing to a cam­paign cash crunch. Biden cur­rent­ly only has one office open in Cal­i­for­nia and is con­sid­ered by many observers to be unpre­pared for Super Tues­day. His cam­paign will need to cal­i­brate quick­ly if it wants to keep pace with Bernie Sanders.

Biden is expect­ed to speak soon and deliv­er a vic­to­ry speech in South Car­oli­na. Mean­while, many of his rivals are in oth­er states, prepar­ing for Super Tuesday.

As South Car­oli­na begins to report actu­al results, we will update this post.