Biden Campaign Says It Will Push Ahead Regardless of New Hampshire Results

Joe Biden’s campaign is determined to fight past Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, a top campaign official said Monday, in the face of low poll numbers in the state.

“We believe that regardless of what happens tomorrow night, we’re going to continue on with our plans to compete hard in Nevada, South Carolina, Super Tuesday and beyond,” deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said at a Bloomberg News reporter roundtable in Manchester.

The former vice president has made “very clear that he’s fighting for every vote here in New Hampshire,” Bedingfield said. But, she continued, “from the outset our campaign has argued that no candidate has been the Democratic nominee for president since 1992 without the support of African American voters.”

Biden remains in the lead in South Carolina, which has a large African American Democratic primary electorate. His campaign had long stressed he expects to do better there than in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the electorate is overwhelmingly white. But now that he is flagging in those early contests, outsiders have begun to question his viability later into the Democratic nominating calendar.

Bedingfield said she remains confident about Biden’s chances in South Carolina even if he follows up his fourth-place finish in Iowa with a similar showing in New Hampshire. “Joe Biden is currently the candidate who has that support, who I think has the longest relationships and connections in the African American community,” she said.