Struggling Biden Abruptly Cancels NH Victory Party Speech, Throws in the Towel and Leaves State
Presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden is already packing up shop in New Hampshire, with voters still in the process of casting ballots in the second contest of the 2020 Democratic primary.
Biden, long considered the uncontested national front-runner in the race, officially decided Tuesday to cancel his slated appearance at an election night party in Nashua, The Hill reported, opting instead to rally the troops in South Carolina, where his support is still strong despite national trends that show Democratic voters may be losing faith in him.
The decision comes as recent polling suggests the former vice president, already in a rut following the Iowa caucuses last week, will likely take another hit in the Granite State.
“I’m going — going to head to South Carolina tonight,” Biden told reporters in New Hampshire before his departure. “And I’m going to go to Nevada, and as I’ve said from the beginning, we’ve got to look at them all.
Facing the prospect of a bracing defeat, Joe Biden is fleeing New Hampshire today to retreat to his stronghold of South Carolina https://t.co/lTtlmdAfWa pic.twitter.com/XfmLyAb2Ax
— POLITICO (@politico) February 11, 2020
“I’m feeling good about that,” Biden said. “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.”
The former vice president will be headlining a Columbia, South Carolina, rally with Democratic Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, his campaign co-chair.
NEXT STOP SOUTH CAROLINA: @JoeBiden is officially leaving #NewHampshire before the first-in-the-nation primary results even come in. Exclusive video of his Granite State goodbye is coming up on @NECN @NBC10Boston #fitn pic.twitter.com/qtgX6NtFoj
— Nestor Mato (@NestorMatoTV) February 11, 2020
South Carolina, claiming a far larger African-American voting base than Iowa or New Hampshire, has long been seen as a must-win for Biden, who has tremendous support among the black community — due in large part to the fact that he was vice president for the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama, ABC News reported.
The career statesman did, however, push back Tuesday against the notion that the state would be a must win for his campaign.
“No, I don’t think so,” Biden said. “Look, remember, when everybody talks about how everybody won before. [Hillary] Clinton lost the first nine events [in 2016], won one, won in Iowa, went on to win the nomination.”
“The rest of the nation is out there. There’s an awful lot of electoral votes to be had, and we’re going to see,” he added. “I think we’re going to do well in Nevada and in South Carolina, and we’ll go from there.”
“It’s a long race. I took a hit in Iowa,” former Vice President Joe Biden tells @GStephanopoulos when asked about Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg coming out on top in Iowa. https://t.co/lywV1Vkjma #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/amsxNdJi6r
— Nightline (@Nightline) February 8, 2020
The 2020 Democratic field’s most prominent moderate, Biden has managed to maintain a solid grip on Nevada and South Carolina as crunch time begins, averaging 21 percent and 31 percent support respectively in the RealClearPolitics polling aggregates for those states.
Nationwide, however, the Biden campaign is not faring as well.
Biden has fallen a long way since May 2019, when the RealClearPolitics polling average showed him with 41 percent support nationwide. He’s currently averaging 20.4 percent support, down nearly 7 percentage points just this month alone.
Perhaps nowhere have these losses in the polls been felt more strongly than in New Hampshire, where Biden was leading as of Jan. 14 — less than a month ago — according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.
As of Tuesday, the day of the primary, Biden was polling at an average of 11 percent support, falling behind not only Sanders, but also former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
At this point, Biden appears to be ready for a poor showing in New Hampshire.
The candidate already took a self-professed “gut punch” in the Iowa caucuses last week.
And as he said during Friday’s Democratic debate, his team was bracing for similar circumstances in New Hampshire.
“It’s a long race. I took a hit in Iowa,” former Vice President Joe Biden tells @GStephanopoulos when asked about Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg coming out on top in Iowa. https://t.co/lywV1Vkjma #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/amsxNdJi6r
— Nightline (@Nightline) February 8, 2020
“I took a hit in Iowa and I’m probably going to take a hit here,” Biden said during the debate.
Early reporting of Democratic primary results from the small New Hampshire towns of Dixville Notch, Millsfield and Hart’s Location — traditionally the first in the state to vote — did not bode any better for Biden either.
Just two votes out of 27 cast went to the former vice president.
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