US President Joe Biden wins Democratic primary election in South Carolina, attacks Trump

The race for the presidency continues in America, in which current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are also involved.

According to the reports, US President Joe Biden won the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday. Biden said he would defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November election. According to US media projections, 81-year-old Biden began his march to his party's nomination with a landslide victory over two far-behind rivals.

However, Democrats will be watching the results of the primaries to see whether Biden, who is struggling with low approval ratings, wins the support of black voters who helped send him to the White House four years ago. "Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have put us on a path to winning the presidency again and defeating Donald Trump again," Biden said in a statement.

The southern US state began Biden's path to the White House in 2020, when he revamped his campaign after several setbacks in the first primaries. Biden had only two long-shot challengers in the primary: Minnesota congressman and gelato magnate Dean Phillips, and popular author Marianne Williamson.

"Who are the other two people on the ballot? I didn't even look," joked Jane Douglas, a 69-year-old retiree leaving a voting booth at an elementary school in Charleston. But there were concerns about turnout, with only a few voters at polling stations visited by AFP in historic downtown Charleston, as many apparently saw his victory as a foregone conclusion.

Biden himself, ex-X, previously urged voters to turn out in a video on Twitter, saying, "South Carolina, go vote today!"

Despite the possibility of South Carolina remaining in Republican hands in November, as it has since the 1980s, Biden views it as a proving ground for his support among black voters.

Many voters said Biden's record as president was mostly satisfactory, while acknowledging a lack of enthusiasm for his second term, but they did not want to see Trump win. Biden has made campaign visits to South Carolina, but stayed away on Saturday, already turning his attention to next week's primary in Nevada, where he will hold a campaign event on Sunday.