Biden’s SC ‘kingmaker’ Clyburn joins 2024 reelection team
South Carolina’s often called Democratic kingmaker, often credited for reviving and propelling Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020, is once again throwing his influence behind the president in his 2024 reelection bid.
After some speculation over whether Biden would seek reelection in 2024, the president officially launched his campaign Tuesday, marking key ally U.S. Congressman Jim Clyburn as a member of his leadership team. The announcement comes one year to the day after Biden declared his 2020 candidacy.
“Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they’ve had to defend democracy, stand up for our personal freedoms, and stand up for our right to vote and our civil rights,” Biden said in a news release. “This is ours. Let’s finish the job.”
Clyburn, South Carolina’s highest-ranking Democrat, is widely credited for helping to resurrect the president’s 2020 presidential campaign at a time when Biden was tanking in other early voting states and facing questions over whether he could appeal to Black voters.
“In 2020, we had a tremendous opportunity to correct the direction our country was headed toward after the previous administration, and we seized it,” Clyburn said. “I often say this country does not need to be made great again, it is already great. Our challenge is making that greatness accessible and affordable to all of its people.”
In 2020, just four days before South Carolina’s primary election, Clyburn endorsed Biden, connecting his support to his late wife, Emily.
There was “nobody Emily loved as a leader in this country more than she loved Joe Biden, and we talked about Joe all the time,” Clyburn said in 2020 in his first endorsement of Biden.
In unveiling his 2024 reelection bid, Biden deployed the same message from his 2020 race: “We are in a battle for the soul of America.”
Currently, only two contenders have stood up to challenge Biden, including Marianne Williamson— who ran unsuccessfully against Biden in 2020 and dropped out of the race just before the South Carolina primary — and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of the late U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and nephew to late President John F. Kennedy.
Earlier this year, the Democratic Party selected South Carolina to go first in the Democratic presidential nominating contest. In 2020, Biden won South Carolina’s Democratic primary by nearly 49%.
Whether Clyburn’s endorsement will serve to secure another win for Biden like in 2020, however, remains to be seen.
In a recent Harvard CAPS/Harrisx poll, 63% of voters said the U.S. economy is going in the wrong direction, and 61% said the country isn’t on the right track. Overall, Biden carries a 43% approval rating.
Other members on Biden’s leadership team include Congresswoman Lisa Blunt-Rochester of Delaware, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of Texas, U.S. Senator Chris Coons, D-DE, U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, D-IL, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of Dreamworks Animation.
Julie Rodriguez, who currently serves as senior advisor to the president and White House director of intergovernmental affairs, will oversee Biden’s next run as his campaign manager.
Biden “has spent the last four years fighting to protect our democracy, our freedoms and the goodness of the American people,” Clyburn said. “Despite our progress, that fight is not yet won. I’m proud to stand with him as we march forward in our pursuit toward a more perfect union.”
This story was originally published April 25, 2023 at 1:04 PM.
