Joe Biden’s rivals scramble to capitalise on his woes in South Carolina

JILL BIDEN was in her element. A lifelong teacher, even during her two terms as Second Lady, she headlined an “Educators for Biden” event in a modest Baptist church in North Charleston. The smartly dressed, mostly African-American crowd was on the older side (it was mid-afternoon on a weekday), as is Joe Biden’s support generally. It felt less like a “getting to know you” than a “nice to see you again” event. Rev Bernard Brown, who said he had been “associated with” Mr Biden for a long time, called the former vice-president “a man of good character.” David Mack, a state representative from Charleston, said the Bidens had sent flowers after his mother died, just a few weeks earlier. The afternoon’s biggest applause was for a woman in the audience who said she was “voting for Joe because he’s an elder statesman. He’s been there.”

Being an elder statesman has not turned out to be the advantage the Biden campaign hoped. Mr Biden’s team has always seen South Carolina as his firewall. A resounding victory in its primary on February 29th, courtesy of a Democratic electorate that is majority-black, would protect him from results in Iowa and New Hampshire. South Carolina’s somewhat conservative African-American Democrats, the campaign thought, trust Mr Biden and appreciate his fidelity to Barack Obama. That argument, which treated black voters as more monolithic than they are, looks less plausible after drubbings in the first two states and falling numbers in South Carolina, where Mr Biden still leads but by less than five points, compared with 20 points at the start of the year.