Biden wins crucial Jim Clyburn endorsement ahead of South Carolina primary – POLITICO

Biden wins crucial Jim Clyburn endorsement ahead of South Carolina primary - POLITICO thumbnail

“In South Carolina, we grab presidents,” he wrote. “I’m calling on you to stand with @JoeBiden.”

Clyburn, the ideal rating African American in Congress, has long been terminate with Biden and has been open about his affinity for the ragged vp all over the Democratic main.

However Biden began to notice his abet erode in South Carolina as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders surged on the heels of solid performances in the critical three contests of the year. And lawmakers bask in Clyburn began to develop increasingly anxious that Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, would possibly perhaps well perhaps be a tear on the trace and switch off moderate whites as neatly as African-American voters, who would possibly perhaps well perhaps myth for 2-thirds of the ballots solid in Saturday’s main.

“I stop believe it goes to be an additional burden for us to hope to raise. That is South Carolina, and South Carolinians are pleasing leery about that title socialist,” Clyburn said Sunday on ABC’s This Week.

Clyburn’s sentiment is broadly shared by others in the Congressional Unlit Caucus, whose individuals catch been extra at grief of endorse Biden — the staunch vp to the nation’s first dim president — than any plenty of candidate in the lunge.

The nervousness about Sanders amongst lawmakers on the ground in South Carolina is “palpable,” in conserving with one member of the dim caucus who didn’t are looking out to publicly criticize Sanders, the present Democratic frontrunner.

Unlit lawmakers who catch endorsed plenty of candidates catch attended just a few the identical occasions this week in South Carolina and catch grown increasingly obsessed on Sanders, the dim caucus member said. However they’re no longer prepared to publicly discuss out against the Vermont senator till Trim Tuesday to notice if any challengers to Sanders are viable, the dim caucus member said.

The video rolled out by the Biden marketing campaign to tout with Clyburn’s endorsement leans carefully on b-roll featuring Biden and Obama, and notes that the Palmetto Train “launched” every he and Bill Clinton into the White Residence after they ran for president. “And now,” Clyburn says in the clip, “we will commence Joe Biden into the White Residence.”

On Wednesday, Clyburn said that he’d made the choice to publicly endorse Biden after an elderly constituent implored him to discuss out on the funeral of his accountant final week.

“‘I have been waiting to hear from you. I wish to hear from you. This community desires to hear from you,’” Clyburn said the constituent instantaneous him. “I optimistic then and there that I wouldn’t pause quiet.”

However in his endorsement, which moved Biden to tears, the congressman furthermore invoked his unhurried foremost other Emily who died final descend, announcing that there modified into as soon as no leader she loved bigger than Biden, whom he’d gotten to know a long time earlier through his work all over the civil rights circulate.

“I do know Joe. We know Joe. However most importantly, Joe knows us,” Clyburn said.

With Biden standing at his aspect, Clyburn echoed the ragged vp’s frequent assertions that the country is at an “inflection point.”

The South Carolina congressman said that his fear of the long lunge modified into as soon as better now than it had been all over the civil rights circulate, remarking when he modified into as soon as jailed for his activism, “I puzzled whether or no longer or no longer we were doing the correct aspect, — nonetheless I modified into as soon as never greatly surprised of the long lunge. As I stand sooner than you as of late, I’m greatly surprised for the methodology forward for this country.”

He argued: “We don’t wish to function this country huge again. This country is huge. That’s no longer what our venture is.”

”Our venture is making the greatness of this country accessible and affordable for all,” he persisted, alongside with that “nobody with whom I’ve ever labored in public lifestyles is from now on committed to that motto, that pledge that I in fact wish to my constituents, than Joe Biden.”

Laura Barrón-López contributed to this file.

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