Biden Heads to South Carolina as New Hampshire Votes

(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden will head to South Carolina on Tuesday night, skipping ahead to a more favorable state as results come in from the New Hampshire primary, where he is flagging in the polls.

The former vice president and his wife, Jill, will be in Columbia, South Carolina, for a 9 p.m. launch party, weeks ahead of the Feb. 29 primary. They will speak to volunteers in the Granite State by livestream.

After coming in fourth in the Iowa caucuses and faring poorly in New Hampshire polls, Biden has sought to recast the early states as one big group, including Nevada and South Carolina.

During Friday’s Democratic debate in New Hampshire, Biden said he “took a hit in Iowa” and will “probably take a hit here,“ but he declined to speculate about how he would do Tuesday.

“We’re still mildly hopeful here in New Hampshire and we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters.

Biden argued that he wouldn’t be the first candidate to fare poorly in early contests and come back later to win the nomination.

“Look, the rest of the nation is out there,” he said. “There’s an awful lot of electoral votes to be had. And we’re going to see but I think we’re going to do well in in Nevada and South Carolina and we’ll go from there. We’ll see.”

In the RealClearPolitics average of New Hampshire polls, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is in the lead, with 28.7%, followed by former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg at 21.3%, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar at 11.7%, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren tied with Biden at 11%.

This post is part of Campaign Update, our live coverage from the 2020 campaign trail.

--With assistance from Ryan Teague Beckwith.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Manchester, New Hampshire at jepstein32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley

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