Biden Travels to Charleston in Bid to Shore Up Black Support

CHARLESTON, S.C. — President Joe Biden kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign in South Carolina on Monday, speaking at the Charleston church that was the site of a mass murder of Black parishioners at the hands of a White supremacist eight years ago.

During his remarks at Charleston’s historic Emanuel AME Church, Biden underscored the “enormous stakes of this election” when it comes to democracy, personal freedom and the continued threat of political violence and extremism.

He also issued a stark warning that the so-called “MAGA Republicans, led by former President Donald Trump, are running on a hate-fueled, dangerous agenda that is the polar opposite of who we are and the principles that define America.”

“White supremacy,” he said, “is a poison that for too long has haunted this nation. This has no place in America, not today, tomorrow or ever.”

Among those in attendance for the speech were survivors and families of the 2015 shooting by Dylann Roof, a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi who said he wanted to incite a race war with his act.

Roof killed nine people, all African Americans, including senior pastor and state senator Clementa C. Pinckney, and injured a 10th person.

Also in attendance were several interfaith leaders from around the area, and Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., co-chair of the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign.

“This year’s election will determine the fate of American democracy, our freedoms and whether this country will stand up against hate and vitriol embodied by Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans,” Clyburn said in a written statement released ahead of the event.

“Few places embody these stakes like Mother Emanuel AME — a church that has witnessed the horrors of hate-fueled political violence and a church that has spoken to the conscience of this nation and shown us the path forward after moments of division and despair,” Clyburn continued.

“I have always said that South Carolina picks presidents and I know President Biden and Vice President Harris agree. We’re all proud to welcome President Biden to the church to remind the nation of what happened and that it is on all of us to fight back against this extremism,” he said.

The president called the congregation of Mother Emanuel a “model for the nation” — pointing to how it responded to unimaginable horror with “healing and lasting progress.”

The president also took a swipe at Republican presidential hopeful and former S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, who got into hot water while campaigning in New Hampshire earlier this month when she answered a question about the Civil War, but failed to mention slavery was its cause.

“Let me be clear for those who don’t seem to know: Slavery was the cause of the Civil War. There is no negotiation about that,” Biden said. “Now, we’re living in an era of a second lost cause,” he continued. “Once again there are some in this country trying to turn loss into a lie. A lie which, if allowed to live, will once again bring terrible damage to this country. This time the lie is about the 2020 election.”

The primary reason for the trip, the second part of the president’s two-stage campaign launch after a speech near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on Friday, was of course politics. Both Biden and Harris have been striving to shore up support with the Black community.

According to the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University, Biden now has the support of just 63% of Black voters, a sharp decline from the 87% he carried in 2020.

That, and more modest declines among other parts of the coalition that elevated him to the presidency four years ago, now has him trailing former Republican President Donald Trump in national polls by narrow margins.

In a USA Today/Suffolk University Poll released last week, Trump edged Biden, 39%-37% in a hypothetical November matchup, with 17% of support going to an unnamed third-party candidate.

When other candidates were specified by name, Trump’s lead expanded by as much as 3 percentage points, 37%-34%, with independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. leading the list of third-party candidates with the support of 10% of poll participants.

The same poll noted Biden’s support has also declined among Hispanic and younger voters, with 21% of those saying they’d vote for someone other than the president or Trump.

A recent poll from The New York Times and Siena College was similarly dire. Focusing on six battleground states, the pollsters found that 22% of Black voters said they would now vote for Trump, while 71% said they favored the president.

While the numbers certainly favor Biden by a wide margin, they also indicate Trump has gained ground among potential Black supporters.

In 2016, only 6% of Black voters nationally said they would support Trump and the number stood at only 8% in 2020.

With those discouraging numbers as context, Biden and Harris are counting on a strong Black turnout for the Feb. 3 primary.

Harris did her part in Myrtle Beach, S.C. on Saturday by speaking at the annual retreat of the Women’s Missionary Society of the 7th Episcopal District of the AME Church.

During her remarks, Harris repeatedly reminded her listeners how they turned out to vote and organized their friends and families to do so in 2020, despite the then-raging coronavirus pandemic.

“It is because of you that Joe Biden is president of the United States and I am the first Black woman to be vice president of the United States,” Harris said, before she recited a lengthy list of the administration’s accomplishments, jobs done or underway, “because you organized and because you voted in 2020.”

“In this moment, our nation, once again, needs your leadership, as you have done for generations, to defend our most sacred ideals, to continue to organize, energize, and make your voices heard,” she said.

Monday’s event in Charleston wasn’t without its logistical missteps. The timing of Biden’s speech coincided with the long-scheduled inauguration of Charleston’s new mayor, William Cogswell, and six Charleston City Council members.

The two events, taking place less than a mile from each other in the heart of the city, provided a challenge to both vehicular and pedestrian traffic for the better part of the day.

Biden was scheduled to depart from Joint Base Charleston and fly to Dallas in the afternoon.

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