All eyes on South Carolina in presidential primary battle
ALLENDALE, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - With the New Hampshire primary past us, South Carolina looms as the next battleground in the presidential race.
That brought California Gov. Gavin Newsom to Allendale to stump for President Joe Biden and GOP candidate Nikki Haley back to her home state to campaign in the Charleston area.
Haley, a Bamberg native and former governor of South Carolina, finished second to Donald Trump in Tuesday’s New Hampshire GOP primary. She remains his last major challenger for the GOP presidential nomination.
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The next primary is Feb. 3 in South Carolina on the Democratic side.
And that’s what brought Newsom to the Palmetto State on Wednesday.
He was in Allendale at 2 p.m. as a special guest in the South Carolina Democratic Party’s “We Go First” statewide bus tour.
“We talk about the importance of bringing American jobs to the South, bringing American jobs back to America. Well, look what the Biden-Harris istration has done. They’ve ed the most significant job program since FDR,” Newsom said.
WATCH NEWSOM’S FULL SPEECH:
Newsom’s visit was one of the earliest stops on the campaign trail for a reason.
Democrats in Allendale as well as Newsom boasted the community’s voting power as one of the places with the highest voter turnout rates in the state.
But it dosen’t come without worry for the GOP front-runners.
“When they punch at us, we should punch back,” Allendale Democrat Horace Lansry said. “We’ve got a whole catalog of stuff we can use – six years of stuff we could be using. But I’m afraid we’re going to wait till the last minute.”
Even though many of the state’s own Congress like Sen. Tim Scott are ing Trump, Newsom says he’s not worried for Biden in South Carolina.
“Joe Biden is president of the United States because of South Carolina. Period, full stop,” Newsom said in his Allendale speech. “I mean, it’s just … this state turned that primary around. So I love the loyalty of Joe Biden, that he expressed that by bringing this primary to be the first in the nation for the Democratic Party.”
He also went to Beaufort County and planned to visit Orangeburg.
On the Republican side, Haley says her 2024 campaign is full steam ahead regardless.
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