Black voters make up about 60 percent of the Democratic electorate here, and the Biden campaign expressed confidence they will buoy his candidacy in the primary in a little over two weeks.
“Relationships matter, relationships count, and your history counts,” said Kendall Corley, Mr. Biden’s state director, nodding at the former vice president’s deep connection to a state he has been visiting for decades.
State Senator Marlon Kimpson, a Democrat who has endorsed Mr. Biden, insisted that voters of color in his Charleston-area district would not take cues from the heavily white states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
“Many, quite frankly, want to send a message contrary to what we’ve seen in Iowa and New Hampshire,” he said. “Because people are disappointed that those two states are viewed as speaking for the rest of the Democratic Party.”
Mr. Biden’s campaign, in turn, is making clear that South Carolina counts: Even as they face a financial strain following his lackluster early performances, Biden officials are pouring money into a state they hope can revive his candidacy.
On Wednesday, they placed nearly $825,000 worth of advertising on South Carolina’s airwaves.
Still, for Mr. Biden, it is difficult to run on a message of electability after opening the primary season with fourth- and fifth-place finishes. Those weak performances have sent him tumbling in the polls and underscored longstanding rules of political gravity in presidential primaries: Candidates cannot assume that their momentary strength in states voting later in the calendar can withstand early struggles.
“Let’s be honest; he was the vice president under the first African-American president so his early name recognition was really high and that lifted his numbers,” said John King, a state lawmaker who recently endorsed Mr. Steyer