Inside a quiet effort to drive Black voters from Biden: From the Politics Desk

This is the digital version of From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter covering the biggest stories in politics. Today’s top story is from Ben Kamisar, plus analysis from Steve Kornacki.

President Joe Biden could be facing a turnout problem in 2024. And an experimental stealth campaign during South Carolina’s Democratic primary highlights one way players in the Republican Party will be trying to exploit Biden’s weaknesses.

A conservative group funded by anonymous donors sent mailers to approximately 75,000 Democratic primary voters in South Carolina, a heavily Black electorate, ahead of the Feb. 3 primary there, criticizing Biden over his administration’s push to ban menthol cigarettes. Black smokers are more likely to use menthol cigarettes, according to research cited by the FDA, and the potential ban has divided civil rights groups.

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Biden won the South Carolina primary overwhelmingly, with 96% support — but the bigger question is whether the mailer, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, pushed recipients to stay home instead of turning out. That kind of result, or pushing voters to consider a third-party option, could have a much bigger effect in the fall in a close swing state.

A source familiar with the strategy driving the group, Building America’s Future, told NBC News that while it’s still analyzing how the mailers affected recipients’ votes in the South Carolina primary, the nonprofit is planning to reinvest in a similar strategy later this year. 

The group is planning to spend more than $1 million on efforts aimed at pushing base Democratic voters away from Biden in the general election, primarily in battleground states. It plans to target predominantly Black voters in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin with a mix of television, digital, radio and direct mail. But the group may also target young voters, too, as it did during golf’s WM Phoenix Open this month by focusing on concerns about potential bans on nicotine pouches like Zyn. 

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Nikki Haley’s home-field disadvantage? Republican voters

Analysis by Steve Kornacki

As the primary calendar turns to Haley’s home state of South Carolina this Saturday, her campaign’s math problem isn’t going to get much easier to solve. 

Polling puts her far behind Donald Trump in the state, with no indication that she’s made any new inroads with core Republican voters. This means that Haley’s hopes for an upset victory — which she probably needs to maintain any plausibility as a candidate — will rest on her ability to attract support from non-Republicans and to turn them out at levels never before seen in a South Carolina primary.

To put her challenge in perspective, take a look at the breakdown of South Carolina GOP primary electorates this century (and note that the state doesn’t register voters by party, meaning that anyone can participate in the GOP contest and that the figures below reflect how voters identified their own partisan loyalties in past exit polls):

As you can see, the share of self-identified Republicans has ranged from just over 60% to as high as 80%. By comparison, self-identified Republicans in the New Hampshire GOP primary last month accounted for barely 50% of the electorate. So, barring an unforeseen surge with these voters, Haley will probably need this number to plummet to an all-time low on Saturday, which would reduce the clout of a voting bloc that appears rather hostile to her. 

This would require a corresponding spike in the share of independents and Democrats crossing over to support her. As the chart above shows, their combined share in South Carolina GOP primaries typically falls in the 20-30% range. The one exception came in 2000, when John McCain was running against George W. Bush and relying on a coalition that — like Haley’s — leaned heavily on non-Republican support. But that still wasn’t nearly enough for McCain, who lost the state by 11 points to Bush thanks to Bush’s overpowering support among core Republicans:

And since 2000, there’s never been a split anywhere near as vast between Republicans and non-Republicans in terms of candidate support:

Note that McCain in his 2008 bid is the only candidate to win South Carolina despite finishing second among self-identified Republicans. But his deficit among those voters was only a single point, allowing McCain to ride his strong independent support to an overall statewide victory.

But with the enormous gaps Haley has faced with Republican voters, it’s the 2000 McCain model that her own effort resembles, not his 2008 one. And to do what McCain failed to do back in 2000 and actually capture the state, Haley will somehow need to expand the share of non-Republicans still further while also squeezing even more votes from them. Talk about a tall order.

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That’s all from The Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at [email protected].

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