African American Presidential Candidates

South Carolina Primary: Why Do African Americans In That State Favor Joe Biden Over Kamala Harris And Cory Booker?

One of the great mysteries of the 2020 Presidential campaign is the massive support in public opinion polls for Joe Biden in the South Carolina primary coming up in February.

Biden has a mixed record on race, considering that he opposed school busing in the 1970s, and was a cosponsor of a tough crime bill in 1994, which led to a large number of African Americans being incarcerated, some unjustly, by a very harsh piece of legislation.

It seems Biden’s support may be due more to the fact that he served as Vice President under President Barack Obama, and yet Obama has purposely not endorsed his former Vice President.

Right now, Joe Biden is not doing well in public opinion polls in Iowa or New Hampshire, so South Carolina, with its large African American population, may be his ultimate life line.

But the debate is why are not Senator Kamala Harris of California and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey doing well in South Carolina, as one would have thought?

And also, will the other African American candidate, former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, late in entering the Presidential race, perform any better than Harris or Booker?

Four Potential African American Presidential Candidates: Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Deval Patrick, Eric Holder

As we start to look ahead to the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination battle, there is the possibility of up to four African Americans running for the Presidency.

Almost certainly running are New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and California Senator Kamala Harris (whose mother is Tamil Indian and father who is from the nation of Jamaica in the Caribbean, so she is mixed race).

Also likely to run is former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and former Attorney General Eric Holder, both close friends of President Barack Obama.

At first thought, the chances of Kamala Harris seem the best, followed by Booker, with lesser chance for Patrick, and even lower chance for Holder.

A likely possibility is that either Harris or Booker might end up as the Vice Presidential nominee at the least.

With a race of maybe 20-25 Democrats announcing, an all time record if that happens, it is very hard this far ahead to project the scenario for what might happen in the winter and spring of 2020, but it is now only 18 months until we are in the heat of the Presidential nominating contest.