Democrats Vote in South Carolina

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. In case you blinked and missed it, there was a Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina on Saturday, the first in the nation for the Dems. President Biden got 97% of the vote. Congressman Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson, each got about 1%. Game over on day one? Officially probably yes, but Biden's got other problems. Democrats have to turn out in November for him to win the swing states, so he campaigned in Michigan on the day before the vote in South Carolina. Yes, Michigan, where Arab Americans make up more of the voting population than in most other states, and Biden's Mideast policy is deeply unpopular.

Then there's the border, a big motivator for Republicans, at the moment. Will this deal that came out of the Senate yesterday, do anything to assuage them on that? The latest NBC News poll shows him trailing Donald Trump by five points in a hypothetical matchup, and I realized it's just a poll, but it's the worst Biden's ever done in five years of that poll since 2019 versus Trump, and with basically a tie among Latinos. Don't kid yourselves with the campaigns. Pay very close attention to a poll like that and adjust accordingly.

With us now, national political correspondent covering the presidential campaign, Elena Schneider, her latest article was called Biden Gets the South Carolina Victory He Wanted. Hi, Elena. Welcome back to WNYC.

Elena Schneider: Hey. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Was it the South Carolina victory he wanted? There was only a quarter of the turnout compared to 2020.

Elena Schneider: Look, this was a primary that was essentially totally uncompetitive. President Joe Biden placed South Carolina first in the nation for this new cycle of presidential primary. South Carolina was doing this for the very first time, going first, and essentially, no one else was really running in this race. As you said, Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson, both were on the ballot, but Dean Phillips, who spent about $5 million in New Hampshire, which ran an unsanctioned contest, I know the rules get a little complicated here, spent only about $500 in South Carolina.

Look, this was, as we know, very much an uncompetitive race, but nonetheless, they did get some takeaways that they are saying and are trying to spin as a positive result, because obviously, overall turnout dropped significantly. It was about 4% of registered voters who showed up on Saturday compared to about 16%, who showed up in 2024, very competitive Democratic primary. What the Biden campaign is pointing to as positive results out of South Carolina is that they saw about a 13% increase in the share of Black voters who showed up on Saturday compared to 2020.

The reason why that is a good sign for them, or they say is a good sign for them is that there was a real sense of-- well, there's both an internal sense and an external pressure to show up better with Black voters because this is a key constituency that Biden has been underperforming with in public and private polling. Part of the goal here out of South Carolina, where there's a far larger percentage of Black voters than in most states, was to do some message testing, see what would work to get Black voters to show up, and then center them very early in the process to say to both voters, Black voters in South Carolina, but also nationally, that the Biden campaign is taking them seriously.

It's trying to show up early, and not just come around in the fall a couple of weeks before Election Day, but to try and show that they're really putting in the work to earn their vote. They're taking away a couple of positive signs, but yes, by and large, this was still an extraordinarily sleepy primary that really doesn't give us a ton of answer yet as to what this means for Biden in November.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have any early take on what we were talking about in our last segment, which is the bipartisan border bill, plus aid to Israel and Ukraine and Taiwan, but the border part of it, with Trump already campaigning to reject the deal? Has Biden said anything yet, or is it too early to say how you see this in the context of the campaign?

Elena Schneider: Biden has already come out and said that he supports this bill, that he wants to see this come forward. Because of what the political implications are at on a number of fronts, he desperately wants to move this Ukraine funding, and by tying it in with the border, that that's a way to move this forward because everybody is ideally getting a little bit of what they want. Biden really wants to move forward with that funding for Ukraine, but there's also some real political implications for the border here. The Biden campaign is acutely aware that the border situation is a challenge for them.

Look no further than the NBC poll that came out over the weekend, where former President Donald Trump leads Biden by 30 points on handling the border. That is a huge problem. It's not to say that is the-- we don't know yet what the entire election is going to really center on come November, but that's a real warning sign. Look, Biden has never, and Democrats generally do not lead on handling of the border in polling. That's not something that they tend to do better on than Republicans, but to have that huge of a gap is definitely a warning sign for the Biden campaign.

By trying to push forward on this bill, they have a two-fold thing. They are attempting to try and address the very real crisis and challenges at the border, but then also, at the same time, they have some benefits of working with the other side of saying, "Look, we're going to move forward in a bipartisan way on the issue, and we're going to give up some concessions." That's something that Joe Biden certainly ran on in 2020, of trying to bring back regular order in terms of how people are able to govern. I think that they would like to use this as a proof point of that effort that coincides also with an issue that maybe they can say, "Look, we are aware that this is a problem, and we're doing something about it."

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you, as a political reporter covering the presidential campaign, the same question that a listener asked our last guest who's an immigration expert, and that's on the other side, the Trump side, how is it in Trump's interest, if he's running on improving border security, to oppose a deal that improves border security?

Elena Schneider: It's in Trump's interest to oppose this border bill, because any improvements on the border arguably does not help his effort. If the border continues to be a challenge, if we continue to see coverage of people coming across the border and this continued crisis of then getting sent into cities all across the country where then local municipalities, including places like New York and Chicago, have had to deal with this enormous influx of migrants to their cities, if that crisis continues, that works to Trump's long-term political benefit.

He does not want to lose that as a wedge issue that he can then run on. Yes, there's a lot of political calculations that are going into this in terms of, not only what Trump would like to see out of this, but also how then House Republicans and Senate Republicans are getting pressured to respond to it, given that he is going to be very, very likely nominee.

Brian Lehrer: I mentioned the NBC poll, you mentioned the NBC poll. Listener writes, "I heard the NBC poll was conducted by calling only people with landlines. Please comment." Do you happen to know how it was conducted? I don't take that as fact, but a listener is saying that they heard that.

Elena Schneider: You know what? I don't have the methodology pulled up, but I absolutely urge listeners to take a look. This is something that high-quality polls do always list their methodology in terms of how many people they've reached, how they reach them, what language they spoke to them, and whether it was conducted online or by phone. I don't actually know off the top of my head what the methodology here was, but NBC is a well-respected poll. I would also urge this person to remember that polls are still a snapshot in time, it does not necessarily have any predictive ability here, it's just sort of where this moment is right now. Right now, things look very difficult for President Joe Biden.

Brian Lehrer: Then what do you make, if you make anything, of basically the tie among Latinos? In that poll, nationally, Latinos voted for Biden over Trump 2:1 in 2020.

Elena Schneider: That's right. Latino voters have continued to be a challenge for Democrats in that, several decades ago, there was this belief that if you were a person of color, that inevitably, you would be a Democrat. That's partially driven by just what voting performance was two decades ago, but that has really changed in recent years. This is difficult, because it presents the challenge of having to speak about a group of people as if they are a monolith, and Latinos who live in Miami, versus the Rio Grande, versus in Orange County, California, we're talking about what wildly different communities with different interests and needs.

I want to say off the top that this is challenging here, but by and large, as a whole, this group of voters has weakened a bit for Democrats and for Biden in particular. Even though, yes, he won them by a majority in 2020, and we expect that he's likely to win them again by a majority in 2024, that losing even by a couple of points makes a huge difference, presents a big challenge for him as we look in places like North Carolina where there's a significant population of Latino voters there, or a place like Pennsylvania, where the same in Philadelphia.

This is to say that this is a group of voters that he needs to be, and we know his campaign is hyper-aware of and presents a challenge because, in a lot of ways, also for them, the border issue is one of a number of issues that they are faced with and that are top of mind for them. I think that the Latino voters, like every other American voter, the economy tends to be the top issue for them.

That's still an area that the NBC poll showed us that he still has some real problems with in terms of translating what the Biden administration has been able to do in terms of the economy and to explain to people that crowing about those victories while also still acknowledging that prices still have not come down in a significant way.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FMHD and AM New York, WNJT FM, 88.1 Trenton WNJP, 88.5. Sussex WNJY, 89.3 Net Con and WNJO, 90.3 Toms River. We are a New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org at 11:02 with national political correspondent Elena Schneider from Politico as we talk about the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday and related things. We can take a few phone calls as well as more texts at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Before we finally leave the border as a topic, I'm curious if you see the Biden and Trump campaigns, watching this special election that's taking place in New York right now to fill the George Santos seat, where the Republican Mazi Pilip is running almost solely on the border, saying Democrat Tom Suozzi, when he was in Congress, he supported Biden on the border, and therefore, he's, in part, responsible for the border crisis. It's just border, border, border, border border from the Republican candidate. That's all they want to talk about. How closely is Biden watching this? How closely is Trump watching this?

Elena Schneider: I think the Biden campaign, and I can speak more clearly to it, but I'm sure the Trump campaign is doing this as well, they're absolutely watching the results out of Long Island that are going to be coming in just a couple of days. Look, special elections do give us a real sense, hard evidence, these are people who are actually showing up to vote, hard evidence about how people feel about various issues and messages.

Unlike polls, which are, as we said, a snapshot in time, special elections and votes like this are not. They are able to actually capture where people are and how they're making their decisions. I think that how much the border message gets through here, how effective that is, is going to shape how they move forward on this issue. Look, it's going to be a fascinating moment to take a look at this because it's also going to have real implications for where things go in November.

We saw some of this already happening in 2022 in New York, where generally speaking, Democrats did very well across the United States in a very difficult midterm year in 2022 but where they fell short was in New York in a lot of places where they lost in a number of battleground districts and even democratic-leaning districts because the border issues were such a problem and such a challenge. Whereas abortion was not as much of a central focus, whereas voters saying it was as important to them as it was in other places like Michigan or Wisconsin. I think that how things go in a couple of days in New York is going to give us a lot of answers as to how both campaigns are going to move forward in terms of their focus and intensity around the border.

Brian Lehrer: Now, there's Biden's military strikes in the Middle East. Here's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Meet the Press yesterday on NBC, after they say 85 targets were hit among groups seen as proxies for Iran after the three American servicewomen were killed in a drone strike in Jordan.

Jake Sullivan: We do believe that the strikes had good effect in degrading the capabilities of these militia groups to attack us. We do believe that, as we continue, we will be able to continue to send a strong message about the United States' firm resolve to respond when our forces are attacked.

Brian Lehrer: There's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Meet the Press yesterday indicating that there's more US military action to come, but here's a clip of an Arab American in Dearborn, Michigan, and we noted at the top that Biden was campaigning in Michigan the other day, not in South Carolina, just before the primary, where there's a relatively large Arab American population in a state that was very close swing state that Biden won, but by not a lot of votes in 2020. This is Khaled Torani on January 26th from a group called Abandon Biden.

Khaled Torani: We will fight Joe Biden. We will make sure that we'll punish Joe Biden by making him one-term president. If Trump becomes president, I'm sure America will survive Trump. Just like it survived him first time, it will survive Trump once again.

Brian Lehrer: How's Biden addressing it? That voter, we don't know how many people he speaks for, but given Biden's policy since October 7th, his policy in Gaza in particular, "How much worse would Trump even be than Biden?" That voter asks. How's Biden addressing that?

Elena Schneider: Look, there's certainly an awareness within the Biden campaign and the White House that there are long-term political challenges as it relates to Israel and Hamas. Again, going back to just this NBC poll, less than 3 in 10 Americans support Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. There is not very much goodwill in the United States towards his handling of it just baseline.

Then we have this challenge where, obviously, these American soldiers from Georgia were killed, and that there is, as he said, a need for response. What the Biden administration is trying to do is to both respond, but do it in such a way that is giving as much room to not escalate a conflict as possible. If you remember Biden pulled out all of our troops from Afghanistan and in a very messy and a fatal way for a number of soldiers moving out of Afghanistan. The hope that he would then be able to withdraw our presence in the Middle East, which was a long-term goal for him.

He does not want to engage or create any more conflict in the Middle East than already exists there, but there is this awareness of needing to respond. Then to speak to the political challenge that all of this presents for him, particularly in a place like Michigan where Arab Americans' presence is one of the biggest in the country in a swing state.

Look, there have been some attempts to try and speak to and reach out to this community. We know that Biden's campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, was dispatched to Michigan to try and sit down with some of these leaders, and they rejected it because they see this not as a campaign issue, but as a policy issue. There were, in fact, a number of them, including the Mayor of Dearborn, were deeply offended by the fact that they sent a campaign surrogate instead of somebody interested in implementing policy.

Even though didn't get the person that they wanted to engage them on this topic, there are still enormous political realities including that clip that you played of somebody saying, "You know what? I'd rather have Trump than Biden because I want to send a message to Biden that this is not okay." I think that in terms of how the Biden campaign plans to respond to this, they're going to continue to try and do some of these sit-downs with various representatives of this community.

I think that there needs to be, and I think that there's a sense internally that there needs to be more of a consistent public and private message that they have publicly hugged and literally hugged, especially in the weeks right after October 7th, the Israeli government, been very supportive of the Israeli government and what they've done. The criticism of Bibi Netanyahu has increased slowly and consistently over the last couple of weeks and months.

I think that they want to and plan to be more aggressive in their criticism of him so that their public position on this conflict matches what they've tried to urge him to do privately, which is to be far more careful and constrained in the way that he's engaging in this conflict. That is, nonetheless, a challenge that really lays bare the political tension points that they face where they're trying to push diplomatic pressure on the Israelis while, at the same time, getting all kinds of pressure at home from Arab Americans and from others, from young voters in particular, who do not like what they see happening in Israel. It lays bare all of the challenges that he's facing right now that are very, very real, and a challenge for him moving forward.

Brian Lehrer: I wonder if you think the killing of the three American service members in Jordan pushes the story, pushes the politics for Biden even more. All three were Black women, and you and everybody in political analysis has been talking about the importance of enthusiasm, sufficient enthusiasm among Black voters for Biden for him to prevail and to presumed matchup against Trump in November.

To his critics on the left, Biden is now sacrificing American lives in support of the way Netanyahu is fighting the war in Gaza, which, as you've been describing, Biden doesn't even support, and refusing a two-state solution process, Netanyahu is that the US and Saudi Arabia both do support. Now, Americans are dying for this, the critics say, because that's why the Iran proxies are striking, and Biden isn't holding Netanyahu to account. I'm curious if you think, politically speaking, the deaths of the three American service members move the needle politically on this even more.

Elena Schneider: I absolutely agree that it increased the pressure on President Biden. I think to have American deaths-- look, there were strikes on American bases that were targeting Americans. A number of people were injured, but nobody was killed up until this point. Obviously, now that there are three service members who have indeed died, that that absolutely does increase the pressure on him.

Look, at the same time, there are some real challenges for him moving forward as it relates to-- as we said, what his public posture is versus his private posture. I think that the death of these three service members then increases the need for him to be more public in terms of what he is trying to do, even if it risks some of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy. I think that he now, as we said, is facing more pressure and it's going to need to marry those positions a little bit more clearly for folks so that they understand where he's coming from.

Brian Lehrer: We have two minutes left in the segment. We're going to take one more listener question and it's going to come from Kylie in Northern Virginia who is going to ask a political campaign existential 2024 who are we question, right, Kylie?

Kylie: [laughs] Yes, I had a chance to get it together. I'm going to try. My bottom line question is, what information do we really think people are using to make these political decisions? I know that it's an age-old question, but I want to just give an anecdote to frame my question. I was having a conversation with my husband about some neighbors of ours that are Trump supporters, and I'm a little nervous of my son playing with them, and my husband was like, a little bit indifferent.

Then one day he's enraged, and I go see what he's watching, and he's watching coverage of all these women who have to leave the states that they live in to go to other states to get abortions. He's over the top. I'm like, "Where have you been? This is not new. We knew this was going to happen." He's on Facebook every day and yet had missed this whole thing. That's the sense of my question is when people are like, "Oh, it's about the economy," or this or that. I'm like, I'm not really convinced of that.

I think people get their news from these really janky places. Then for a lot of people, when they're confronted with the actual policies of whomever that they say they support, or particularly like Donald Trump, then they are like, "Oh, that's awful." I'm like, "I know. Where have you been?" That's my question. That's it.

Brian Lehrer: Kylie, thank you. Yes, janky places to get news, to use Kylie's term. We try to do real things here. You try to do real journalism at Politico, and yet people are getting their news off TikTok and whatever.

Elena Schneider: Well, look, I think she's also spotlighting one of the biggest concerns for the Biden campaign, which is, how do you reach voters like her husband, who, if only they knew in their words, in the Biden campaigns words, if only they knew what a challenge that, or what a problem Donald Trump would present, either be it around abortion policy or his comments about being dictator for a day or his foreign policy positions, that if only they knew, then they would vote a different way and/or they would decide to vote at all.

Their challenge is that our media ecosystem is so fragmented and siloed that the only way to reach those people is to absolutely blast this environment with millions and millions and millions of dollars of paid advertising to try and find those people wherever they are, be it on YouTube, be it streaming on Twitch via video games, or on TikTok, or on Twitter, that they're going to try and find every single place that a voter might be to reach them with those messages. The problem is that it's extraordinarily expensive, and it's still incredibly difficult to do because you have to do it multiple times. I think she's really speaking to the core of the Biden campaign's challenge as we head into the general election here.

Brian Lehrer: Kylie, keep calling us, and Elena Schneider, keep coming on with us. Elena Schneider, national political correspondent for Politico covering the presidential campaign. Thank you so much.

Elena Schneider: Thank you, Brian.

 

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