New Hampshire Primary: Biden suffers another debacle, leaves for primary-bound South Carolina before poll ends
As his supporters feared, former vice president Joe Biden was set for another low finish in the New Hampshire Primary and he skipped the primary night in the Granite State as the final results started coming out and landed in South Carolina, which will go to the primary on February 29.
Early trends showed Biden doing worse in New Hampshire compared to Iowa as he was languishing at the fifth position while Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was leading the fray. Sanders was around 28% while former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg was second with around 23%. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar was the surprise package as she climbed to the third position with 20.8% while her Massachusetts counterpart Elizabeth Warren was pushed to the fourth position with less than 10%. Biden could manage 8%, the trends showed.
According to the CNN, Biden’s campaign views states like South Carolina to have more diverse demographics than Iowa and New Hampshire and that could make it favorable for Biden, who is now looking for a serious boost to keep his presidential hopes alive.
Before leaving for South Carolina, Biden said: "Look, we got a lot of good friends here in New Hampshire but this race isn’t over until you — got significant portions of the electorate who haven’t voted yet. And I’m going — going to head to South Carolina tonight and I’m going to go to Nevada as I’ve said from the beginning, we gotta look at them all. And I’m feeling good about that, we’ve got a lot of great friends here who have helped us a lot. We’re still mildly hopeful here in New Hampshire. And we’ll see what happens."
Biden campaign hopes to pull a Bill Clinton of 1992
Louisiana Representative Cedric Richmond, co-chairman of Biden’s campaign, said Biden’s nomination would follow the “Clinton model”, a reference to former president Bill Clinton’s path to bagging nomination in 1992.
Clinton, who was the governor of Arkansas then, could win just one of the first 11 primaries and that was in Georgia. Then, on March 7, he had a comprehensive victory in the Palmetto State, which was decisive.
“He won one of the first 11 primaries. And then he won the 12th one in South Carolina and that launched him to the presidency,” Richmond said.
The 77-year-old Biden has a different story so far than Clinton, who had brought with himself fresh aspiration those days. The former Delaware senator faced a backlash days before the New Hampshire Primary when he tried to shut a student supporter for questioning his performance in Iowa and the overall viability as a candidate.
'Biden presidential bid is imploding'
As Biden left for South Carolina in a private flight for an event launching his campaign there, ‘The Five’ co-host Jesse Watters lashed out at him, saying the former vice president’s presidential bid was imploding as he left New Hampshire even before the polls closed. "Sensing a disaster, the former vice president is booking it out of the state and is headed to South Carolina," he said.
Meanwhile, many of Biden’s leading African-American supporters complained on Tuesday, February 11, that Biden was being written off the presidential race before the black voters had any substantial say.