With Kamala Harris out, SC’s ‘Reckoning Crew’ of black voters has new pick for 2020
After U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris dropped out of the presidential race last week, an influential nearly all-female African American activist group in South Carolina has found a new favorite candidate.
On Tuesday, former vice president Joe Biden officially landed the endorsement of the Reckoning Crew and its leader and founder Bernice Scott, who helped knock on hundreds of doors in 2016 for then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who went on to become the nominee.
The roughly 33-member group whose members hail from across Richland County — the oldest of which is 99 years old — had formally endorsed Harris. But after the California Democrat’s exit from the race, the group announced a new pick at Scott’s house in Lower Richland Tuesday afternoon.
“Joe Biden’s support in South Carolina, particularly (among) African American voters is undeniable and unshakable,” Scott said in a statement. “Throughout this race, he has taken hits from every angle and come out stronger. He has proven to us that he has exactly what it takes to beat Donald Trump next year.”
Since he entered the race in April, Biden, who touts on the campaign trail his relationship with the state, has not struggled to win over the state’s key black voters — who make up two-thirds of the party’s voting bloc — in the nation’s first southern primary state.
But the Reckoning Crew endorsement could help the former vice president win over undecided voters who may not be tuned into the Democratic presidential primary race just yet and Harris supporters, who are looking for another candidate to back after she bowed out of the presidential race earlier this month, citing campaign financial problems as her reason.
What the decades-old Reckoning Crew can bring to Biden is an organic organizing effort across the Midlands, led by 75-year-old Scott, a former Richland County councilwoman. During the 2016 presidential primary race, the group knocked on hundreds of doors in many of Richland County’s predominately black neighborhoods and staffed phone banks to make calls on behalf of Clinton.
“We plan on putting in the long days and long nights, working around the clock to get out the vote for Joe,” Scott said. “We’ll be making phone calls and hitting the pavement going door-to-door talking to voters about what is at stake in this election. No one can afford to stay home — and they won’t if we have anything to do with it.”
Scott has a long history of backing female candidates for president.
She supported Clinton during her first run in 2008 despite polls showing then-candidate Barack Obama as a front-runner.
In a statement, Scott called Harris’ voice in the 2020 field an “important one,” adding it’s time they unite around another candidate.
“And from there, we are confident Joe will continue to build on the history he made with Barack Obama,” Scott said.
This story was originally published December 10, 2019 at 2:59 PM.
