I am trying to understand the logic of using Democratic primary results in deep South, Republican States to influence the selection of the national Democratic candidate for President.  I understand that the black vote in South Carolina (SC) represents 60% of registered Democratic voters in the State.   It is also true that a Democratic candidate cannot win the Presidential Election without the support of America’s black population but these two statements could be very disconnected. South Carolina has voted for Republican candidates 14 out of 15 times in Presidential elections since 1964 in spite of its 60% democratic black vote!  And that one time, the vote was for SC southern neighbor, Democrat, Jimmy Carter.  One should ask why South Carolina, with a large black population nearly always votes for Republican Presidential candidates. The overwhelming number of Black Americans  nationally vote for Democratic candidates.  For example, in 2020 an overwhelming majority of black voters — 85 percent — said in a Hill-HarrisX poll that they would choose any Democratic presidential candidate over Trump.

I am startled that Democrats & MSNBC and CNN News Program Hosts and Pundits believe a Biden victory in South Carolina is very meaningful given the fact that the State has supported a Democratic Presidential candidate only once in the last 52 years!   Perhaps in 2016 it would have made more sense when selecting its candidate for President if the Democrats had given more weight to the votes of Northern Blue or Purple States because we already know the most likely outcome of the Presidential election in southern states like South Carolina...support for the Republican candidate.  If Democrats had given more weight to Sander’s victories over Clinton in the Northwest and states like Alaska (Bernie by 60%) in 2016, some believe the results of the 2016 election might have been different [1].  Ms. Clinton won primaries across the entire Southern US belt but lost every one of those states, except New Mexico (12 out of 13 states), to Donald Trump [2].  One 2020 poll [3] shows a Bernie vs Biden projected map that looks dangerously similar to the Hillary vs Bernie map of 2016 (makes some sense...a similar moderate vs progressive result).  This is just a one-poll-caution to Democrats just in case they believe that Biden is more electable than Sanders because of a handful of states' victories in the US South, all of whom will likely again support the Republican candidate...Donald Trump.

Is there any reason why the black vote in SC should matter as much to Democrats as the black vote in Illinois, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania at this point in history?  In 2016, Secretary Clinton had a double digit victory over Senator Sanders in South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Texas...48% points over Sanders in SC (more than Biden in 2020).  She went on to lose  the four listed states to Trump by 15%, 29%, 8%, & 10%.  It’s not likely that any Democratic candidate would have done any better in these southern states than Ms. Clinton. Sanders, on the other hand, defeated Clinton by 23% in Minnesota, 13% in Wisconsin, 1.5% in Michigan and double digits all over the US Northwest.  I would suggest that Democrats give a bit more thought to the relevance of the deep south Democratic primaries on the final Presidential election outcomes.

[1] https://allthatsinteresting.com/bernie-sanders-electoral-map

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/president

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries