Booker and Bernie plunge into South Carolina

The two senators have something to prove in the first Southern state to vote in 2020.

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN and NOLAN D. MCCASKILL 01/21/2019 08:00 AM EST

COLUMBIA, S.C.— When Sens. Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders make their first early primary state appearances of 2019 on Monday, the location won’t be by chance.

As the first Southern state to vote in 2020 — and, more important, the first state where African-Americans will cast a majority of the primary vote — South Carolina looms as a crucible for both potential presidential candidates. Each has something to prove here, though for entirely different reasons.

For Booker, the state presents an opportunity for an early show of strength next year with the Democratic Party’s most loyal bloc of voters. As one of the few African-American candidates likely to run, he’ll have a moment to break out of the crowded field after voting takes place in overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire.

For Sanders, it’s an opening to move beyond his dismal 2016 performance with black voters here, when he won only 26 percent of the total vote in the primary against Hillary Clinton and exposed a weakness that was repeated across the South.

“Why is South Carolina important?” said Jaime Harrison, a former chair of the state Democratic Party. “It’s important because it’s the first state that these candidates will get an opportunity to vet their message with a population that reflects the heart of the Democratic Party, which is African

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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/21/cory-booker-bernie-sanders-2020-south-carolina-1116072