Joe Biden’s plan to depend on South Carolina, the fourth state in the Democratic presidential primary, to score a decisive win and propel him to victory is a dangerous gamble with no historical precedent, according to political strategists.
Bill Clinton, in 1992, is the only major party candidate in modern history to win his party’s presidential nomination after losing in Iowa and New Hampshire.
But Iowa was uncontested in 1992 because “favorite son” Sen. Tom Harkin was running and Sen. Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts won New Hampshire because he poured all his resources into the state rather than running a national campaign.
The more relevant historical comparison could be Rudy Giuliani’s disastrous presidential campaign of 2008 when the former New York mayor held double-digit leads in polls throughout 2007 but decided to skip Iowa, because of the predominance of evangelical Christians, and New Hampshire, where many voters were fiscally conservatives.
Instead, Giuliani betted everything on Florida, the fourth most-populous state and with a socially liberal, cosmopolitan reputation that seemed a fit for the pro-abortion moderate. Victory there his aides predicted, would propel him to big wins in California. In the event, Giuliani’s losses in the early states prompted a catastrophic drop in the polls and he dropped out after finishing third in Florida.
“If Biden gets a third in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, at that point donors are going to abandon you,” a veteran Iowa Democratic strategist told the Washington Examiner, who said polling indicates this was a plausible scenario.
“At that point there’s going to be an emergence of an alternative. If I were a betting man, I’d say Biden gets third in the first three states. I think Biden’s people are punting at this point. And in Iowa here, it seems like they’re just going through the motions and playing for second place.”
Since Warren’s rise in the polls, the Biden campaign has been tempering expectations in multiple donor meetings and in interviews with journalists. “Do we think we have to win Iowa? No. Do we want to win Iowa? Yes, we do,” a Biden aide said in a September phone call with reporters. “We think we’re going to win; we know it’s going to be a dogfight. The same thing is true in New Hampshire.”
Harkin, the 1992 victor in Iowa, told the Washington Examiner that emulating Clinton’s path to the nomination that year would be no easy task.
“Whoever comes out of the Iowa caucuses with the plurality get a real big boost,” Harkin said. “Clinton swept the south and that’s what tipped him over the top. It’s possible to win without winning the first three state although whoever wins Iowa has a much better chance because of that fact.”
Recent polling signals early-state trouble for Biden. While Biden enjoyed a decisive lead over the rest of the pack in national polls for months, he is now trailing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a RealClearPolitics average.
In Iowa, Warren leads Biden by three points in an average of recent polls. And in New Hampshire, multiple surveys released last month show Warren pulling ahead. A September poll of Nevada voters showed Biden tied with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
In South Carolina, where Biden still holds a double-digit lead over Warren, early signs are beginning to emerge that he cannot depend on black voters to carry him to the nomination. A Quinnipiac poll released last month showed Warren’s black support at 19%, a nine-point increase since August.
“It’s definitely a must-win for the vice president. He has to win in a very defined way like Hillary did in 2016,” said South Carolina Democratic political strategist Antjuan Seawright. “The other thing is it also serves as an indicator and a reminder of the strength of the African American vote for Joe Biden.”
He added: “He cannot afford to have a bad showing in states before South Carolina.”
Last weekend, Biden’s campaign sought to assure donors that they don’t believe a candidate will be chosen until after Super Tuesday — where 40% of the delegates are available and in states, like California, North Carolina and Texas hold their primaries. Biden raised $15.2 million in the third quarter of 2019, while Warren raked in $24.6 million and Sanders, $25.3 million.
