Biden Controversy Leaves Little Mark With South Carolina Voters

(Bloomberg) -- For the past few days, all Tammie Minter heard about was former Vice President Joe Biden’s comments at a New York City fundraiser.

She had heard of the outcry set off by the Democratic presidential front-runner on Tuesday when he spoke of an atmosphere of “civility” in the Senate while he worked alongside segregationist lawmakers in the early 1970s. But Minter thought the criticism, and the calls for Biden to apologize, were misguided.

“You have to be able to work with everybody -- whether you like them, if you are a different party, whatever -- and that’s somebody I’m looking for, not somebody who is divisive like what we have now,” said Minter, 49, as she waited to enter Representative James Clyburn’s Fish Fry in Columbia, South Carolina, one of several events this weekend that drew 21 of the 23 Democratic presidential candidates, including Biden.

The former vice president’s comments and several days of tit-for-tat sniping with his critics had been expected to overshadow the gathering and undercut his deep support in South Carolina, where African Americans account for about 60% of Democratic voters. Instead, the controversy seemed to fall off the radar screen.

It was only when the event was nearing an end on Saturday that Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, one of Biden’s fiercest critics and one of two major African American candidates in the presidential race, revived the set-to.

“I have a lot of respect and gratitude for the vice president and I want folks to know I have nothing to apologize for when it comes to speaking truth to power, and he’s a powerful person,” he told reporters.

Booker’s unwillingness to let the dispute die virtually ensures it will carry over to the first debates of Democratic candidates on Wednesday and Thursday in Miami. Like other contenders stuck on the lower tiers in the polls, Booker needs a strong showing at the forum to break out. But if South Carolina voters are any guide, continuing the fight with Biden won’t help make a dent in the front-runner’s strong backing among African Americans, a key Democratic constituency.

The controversy erupted Tuesday after Biden recalled his interactions during his early years as senator from Delaware with the two prominent advocates of segregation. Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, Biden said with a heavy Southern drawl, “never called me boy, he always called me son.” Senator Herman Talmadge of Georgia, he added, was “one of the meanest guys I ever knew, you go down the list of all these guys” but “at least there was some civility.”

Like Minter, many African American voters this weekend echoed Biden’s explanation that his critics misunderstood the point he was trying to make. They said his anecdote illustrated his ability to work with anyone to get things done, an asset that makes him the best candidate to defeat President Donald Trump. Electability, for many Democratic voters, is the primary concern.

“The things that people try to define Joe Biden on seems to be not the things that everyday people, particularly here in South Carolina, are willing to yield to that on,” said Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina Democratic strategist. “That just goes to show you how out of touch some of the people in Washington, D.C., and the media in New York are versus the people who are on the ground.”

Not everyone at the Democratic weekend thought Biden deserved a free pass, though, and some said there was a generational divide among African American voters. Before the weekend, elder statesmen like Clyburn and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including civil rights icon John Lewis, jumped to the former vice president’s defense, signaling the backing from party leaders who have worked alongside Biden for decades.

Young African American voters weren’t so forgiving. “I think these comments are something he needs to pay for,” said Omari Anderson, a 32-year-old from Atlanta. “Right now, we’re talking about one set of comments, but at the end of the day, you need to look at the totality of the circumstances.”

But the generational split may not matter much in South Carolina, where primary voters skew older, according to exit polls from 2016, which show that 47% of voters were between the ages of 45 and 64. The next largest group, 20%, was between the ages of 30 and 44, while voters 65 and older accounted for 19%.

Biden is still up against the most diverse pool of Democratic presidential candidates to ever vie for the White House. Both Booker and Senator Kamala Harris, who also fired back at Biden for his comments, are investing a lot of resources into South Carolina for the backing of African Americans in the primary.

Sudria Twyman, a 32-year-old law student at the University of South Carolina, campaigned for Obama and Biden in 2008 and 2012, but this time she is supporting Harris, who polls at 9% in the state.

“She’s a black woman, she is smart, she is a force in the Senate and every time she talks I am inspired,” Twyman said. “We need a woman president. There’s something special with Kamala, like Obama.”

But, for now, many voters are sticking with Biden. For Cynthia Keller, 44, the uproar did not even register. She said she hadn’t heard about Biden’s remarks, but had made up her mind long before.

“Before Joe even decided to run, we knew he was our president,” said Keller, a special needs assistant from Irmo. “Joe stands for the people and is against the divisiveness.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Columbia, South Carolina at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net;Tyler Pager in Columbia, South Carolina at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Emma Kinery in Columbia, South Carolina at ekinery@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, John McCluskey

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