South Carolina could give Booker a head start in 2028

WASHINGTON — When he ran for president in 2020, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker had South Carolina on his mind.

Booker visited the state before he entered the race for the Democratic nomination, and again shortly after entering the race. He didn’t ignore the other early states — Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada — but he clearly had eyes for the Palmetto State, where Black voters comprised a majority of Democrats. (Those voters eventually lined up behind Joe Biden, who loyally had as vice president to the first Black president, Barack Obama.)

This time around, South Carolina is poised to host the first Democratic contest of the 2028 presidential campaign, not the fourth as in 2020, and that could help Booker should he seek the White House again.

“The reasoning that an African American candidate would do well in a South Carolina Democratic primary is not far-fetched at all, and if he’s going to take a shot at it, I think in some ways it’s a far better location than New Hampshire or Iowa,” Rutgers University political science professor Ross Baker said.

After he ended his campaign in January 2020, before the first votes were cast, Booker still made regular treks to South Carolina, including earlier this year. It’s as if the state’s voters said, “Don’t be a stranger” and he listened to them.

Booker adviser Modia (Mo) Butler said the senator was “laser-focused” on winning a new term in Washington, and any talk of a future campaign would have to wait until after Election Day. Booker, who was re-elected to the Senate in 2020 after ending his presidential campaign, is running for a new term this fall.

Butler acknowledged that a first-in-the-nation South Carolina would offer some advantages should Booker decide to run for the White House after this year’s midterms are behind him, including the fact that he represents one of the most diverse states in the nation.

“South Carolina being the first state in a Democratic primary is clearly an advantage to a candidate who is accustomed to representing a very diverse populace,” Butler said.

“And the other piece of it is like he’s a known commodity in South Carolina. We spent an amount of time there when he ran for president back in 2019, and we maintained those relationships, and those connections, by being visible and showing up to South Carolina over the last five, six, seven years.”

One of those relationships is with Christale Spain. She was South Carolina state director of Booker’s 2020 presidential campaign. Now Spain chairs the state Democratic Party.

But there are no guarantees that those relationships will pay off, said Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina-based Democratic consultant.

“If Cory Booker would decide to run, I certainly think that his ongoing relationship-building activities in the state could pay him some dividends, if that’s what he decides to do,” Seawright said.

“However, I think that nothing is guaranteed,” he said. “You make no assumptions, because Black voters are not monolithic. So it would take some on-board, strengthening, conditioning of relationships, and, quite frankly, some new relationships, in order to have a chance at winning, not only the support, but the trust of Black voters in our state.”

Should he succeed with winning over Black voters in South Carolina, Booker could be well-positioned to attract support of “one of the most largest, if not the largest, and most dedicated voting blocs in the history of this country” in other states as well, Seawright said.

“If you can develop a relationship, or there’s a sense of trust demonstrated in South Carolina with Black voters, it could open up doors to other places with the African American voters that are needed along the way.” Seawright said.

At the same time, there is no guarantee that Black voters would embrace Booker in South Carolina, Baker said.

“The African American electorate is not necessarily going to go with an African American hopeful,” he said. “I think people are very pragmatic, and make decisions based on the broader picture of national electability and so on.”

Still, Baker said, South Carolina likely would be a more hospitable place for Booker than some other early states.

“It’s a place that I think that the voters would feel comfortable with him, whereas in other states, it could be a stretch,” he said. “If he were to get a flying start out of South Carolina, I think you would have a campaign that you’d have to reckon with. He’s going to have a lot of competition for South Carolina, but he is well positioned to certainly be in the top group of hopefuls.”