| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker | With help from Ella Creamer, Jesse Naranjo, Zach Montellaro, Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz
|  Rep. Jim Clyburn, dean of South Carolina's congressional delegation, speaks at a rally in Orangeburg the day before the primary. | POLITICO illustration/Photo by Getty Images | What up, Recast family! The recently unveiled bipartisan Senate border deal careens toward collapse. It’s primary day in Nevada, where Nikki Haley is expected to win, though it's insignificant as Trump will win the GOP caucus later this week and sweep all the state’s delegates. Plus, the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on whether former President Donald Trump violated the 14th Amendment. First, though, we focus on whether South Carolina Democrats did enough to remain the kickoff state in the Democratic primary calendar. President Joe Biden steamrolled his way to victory in South Carolina on Saturday, but it's far from clear if the state itself secured the win it was ultimately seeking: to remain the first state in the Democratic primary process. Though party officials were spinning the 131,000 or so voters who showed up on Saturday as a success, the total numbers weren’t all that different from the 124,000 votes that New Hampshire produced last month. The 7,000 vote difference from a much smaller state — where Biden didn’t campaign or even have his name on the ballot — could weaken South Carolina’s claim that it should continue in the leadoff position in 2028. South Carolina's Democratic Party made its first-state status central to its efforts, launching its "We Go First" campaign with its underlying message that the party was centering Black voters early — giving the party’s most loyal voting bloc early sway in picking the party’s nominee. It brought a number of high-profile surrogates who crisscrossed the state. This included Vice President Kamala Harris, who visited the state twice in the span of three weeks, including a rally last Friday in Orangeburg on the last day of early voting. Biden also stumped in the state, making separate visits to Charleston and Columbia in January. The national party sent House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge and California Gov. Gavin Newsom to excite voters.
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“I don’t have anything against New Hampshire, their party, their people,” said Clay Middleton, a Charleston-based senior adviser to the Biden reelection campaign. “South Carolina and our party just reflects America.”
But South Carolina's own argument may have been undermined by Rep. Jim Clyburn, the dean of the state Democratic congressional delegation, who floated returning New Hampshire its delegates at a Saturday night victory party.
|  Clyburn speaks at a campaign rally in Orangeburg on Friday. | Meg Kinnard/AP | “I believe, Jaime, that it’s time for us to ask our rules committee not to hold the state law in New Hampshire against our Democrats,” Clyburn said, speaking to fellow South Carolinian Jaime Harrison, who chairs the Democratic National Committee. Clyburn went on to suggest the party’s rules committee should backtrack on its pledge to not seat New Hampshire’s delegates at this summer’s nominating convention. Harrison appeared to agree with that sentiment, telling Clyburn, “We’ll have to work on that, congressman.” The real question is how to judge the performance of South Carolina's primary. On one hand, the election was essentially uncontested — the president faced nominal challenges from Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and self-help guru Marianne Williamson — meaning there was little reason for voters to show up. Prior to the Feb. 3 primary, the party was reluctant to put a number on their turnout goals. Clyburn told The New York Times he hoped that “150 to 200,000 people” would show up. The final vote total ended up being less, but at the time Clyburn also said he hoped Biden would notch somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 to 75 percent of the vote — a number the president far surpassed. But regardless of the numbers, the overarching message from the state party seemed to be directed at the national party and toward the future — to keep South Carolina in the lead position when it's time to set the 2028 primary calendar. “We were picked to go first because our voters give a damn,” said Jay Parmley, the executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party. “We have demonstrated throughout all this activity, through our strong early vote numbers that we were damn well deserving of this. And that our voters are enthusiastic and energized.” He added: “When you go first, there’s nothing else to compare it to.”
|  | | This was a first for South Carolina, which until now had never held its primary with an incumbent president running for reelection. The state canceled its primary in 2012 when Obama ran again. Heading into the primary, party officials went to great lengths to downplay the prospect of low voter turnout. They used terms like “unprecedented” — a nod to why Biden, a sitting president, had to go through a relatively useless primary exercise — while repeatedly characterizing the contest as “contested but not competitive.” “There is not a data point to actually compare this turnout to,” said Lindsey Green, the state party’s get-out-the-vote director. “You can't compare it to 2020. Because that was a highly competitive primary election. In 2012, when we had the incumbent president, we didn't have a primary. So this is a whole new data point.” There is some truth to that. The last open and competitive primary was in 2020. And in that primary South Carolina voters did turn out — in droves — and that time New Hampshire couldn’t match its output in terms of voter participation. That year, roughly 297,000 voters cast ballots in New Hampshire compared to the nearly 540,000 in South Carolina. Of course, Biden didn’t win the Granite State that year. Sen. Bernie Sanders narrowly edged out Pete Buttigieg, the current Transportation secretary. Biden came in a distant fifth in New Hampshire. South Carolina Democrats made the case that Black voters, who handed Biden his victory, are a vital voting bloc for Democrats and deserve to have a crucial first place in choosing its president. |  Voters check in at a polling place in West Columbia on Saturday. | Allison Joyce/AFP via Getty Images | Over the weekend, South Carolina Democrats cautioned reporters as polls closed to not look too deeply into what the final turnout numbers will be. One official went so far as to suggest that reporters should “get out of the numbers game” — but then pointed to a statistic showing 77 percent of early voters were Black. The Black participation in early voting, officials said, was 13 percent higher than four years ago when South Carolina was a decisive primary for Biden as he competed with several other major Democratic candidates. That’s a claim New Hampshire will never be able to make, given that its Black population is only about 2 percent, according to Census Bureau figures. We’ll keep an eye on this to see how this all shakes out. All the best,
The Recast Team
| | | SCOTUS TO HEAR 14TH AMENDMENT ORAL ARGUMENTS
|  The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments this week about whether the former president is ineligible to run for his old job due to his role on Jan. 6, 2021. | Evan Vucci/AP | The Supreme Court is hearing arguments this Thursday on whether former President Donald Trump is ineligible to run for president again. As my colleague Zach Montellaro breaks down for us in this dispatch, it’s because of an interpretation of a clause of the 14th Amendment, which says people who “engaged in” an insurrection against the United States after taking an oath to “support” the Constitution are ineligible to hold office. Officials in two states — the state Supreme Court in Colorado and the secretary of state in Maine — have deemed Trump ineligible under that interpretation, setting us up for Thursday’s high-stakes hearing. Of all Trump’s legal challenges, this case is perhaps the most direct electoral threat to Trump; if he loses, he could theoretically be off the ballot nationwide. But the outcome is far from clear. Both Trump and those challenging his eligibility have urged the high court to issue a definitive ruling — resolving the issue well ahead of the November elections. But there are plenty of off-ramps the justices could take that would allow Trump to remain on the ballot without the court having to wade into the … let’s call it contentious fight around what level of responsibility Trump bears for the attack on the U.S. Capitol three years ago. Not since Bush v. Gore has the Supreme Court had to be involved so directly in a presidential election, considering the court quickly dismissed the conspiracy-fueled, Trump-backed challenges to the results of the 2020 election. I’ll be watching Chief Justice John Roberts the closest on Thursday. The chief has pined for a time where the court was seen in a more apolitical light. How that’s even possible in this latest era of Trump remains to be seen.
| | | ICYMI @ POLITICO
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Rep. Andy Kim's leadership PAC has raised a low sum compared to his own fundraising prowess. | Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP | Andy Kim’s Recruitment — Rep. Andy Kim has maintained his double-digit lead over his primary opponent in his run to replace the embattled Bob Menendez in the Senate. But as POLITICO’s Daniel Han and Matt Friedman report, Kim’s leadership PAC, which aims to help more Asian Americans and people of color get elected, has had paltry fundraising since it launched in 2021. Why Nevada Doesn’t Matter — As we mentioned at the top, yes, it’s primary day in a western swing state. But — as POLITICO’S Madison Fernandez notes in her Weekly Score newsletter — today’s vote may not actually matter. All the Single Moms — Black women are the most loyal cohort of the Democratic Party. But as POLITICO’s Bianca Quilantan reports, a new survey of Black women who are middle- to low-income and are single mothers of school-aged children don’t feel the country is headed in the right direction. And that could spell trouble for Biden in this year. Biden’s Challenges Aren’t With No Labels — POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin details why the president’s biggest threat isn’t a challenge from a potential No Labels candidate, but actually from young Democrats who find Biden’s embrace of Israel untenable.
| | | THE RECAST RECOMMENDS “This Is the Honey,” an anthology of contemporary Black poetry curated by Kwame Alexander, offers a tapestry of voices exploring love, food, joy, race and resistance. Back to class: “Abbott Elementary,” the sitcom brainchild of Quinta Brunson, is back for Season 3 tomorrow at 9 p.m. on ABC.
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| “Harriet” star Cynthia Erivo is back in “Drift” playing Jacqueline, a young refugee who arrives alone on a Greek island. Navigating traumatic memories, Jacqueline attracts the curiosity of an American tour guide (Alia Shawkat). The beautifully shot film arrives in theaters on Friday. Thee Sacred Souls fuse Latin and soul in their NPR Tiny Desk concert, packed with romantic jams. K-pop girl group Twice traverses stormy seas in “I Got You,” an uplifting ode to the power of friendship.
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| TikTok of the Week: Pulling at the heartstrings
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