2020 South Carolina Democratic presidential primary

Joe Biden (D) has won; 100 percent of precincts are reporting.

Last updated: Mar 1, 2020 at 12:14 a.m. EST

Former vice president Joe Biden has won the South Carolina Democratic primary, leading in nearly every county and boosting his campaign before Super Tuesday's 14 primaries. An outpouring of support from the state's African-American voters powered heavy turnout and established Biden as the party's leading opponent to Bernie Sanders. There are 54 pledged delegates at stake. Tom Steyer, who invested much time and money in the state, did not reach the threshold of 15 percent to earn any, and ended his campaign. Follow the Post's live updates here.

In three days, the nominating contest moves to Super Tuesday, when several million voters will award a total of 1,357 delegates in states where white voters will make up less than 60 percent of the electorate. To date, Biden has won more popular votes than Sanders, and South Carolina was his first primary win in three presidential campaigns. But to win the nomination, a candidate needs 1,991 delegates.

As votes were counted, it appeared South Carolina turnout was approaching its record high set in 2008, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were running for the nomination.

Florence

Greenville

Charleston

Columbia

LEAD/WON

Biden

Candidate	Votes	Pct.	Del.
Joe Biden Biden	255,662	48.4%	39
Bernie Sanders Sanders	105,070	19.9%	15
Tom Steyer Steyer	59,815	11.3%	0
Pete Buttigieg Buttigieg	43,484	8.2%	0
Elizabeth Warren Warren	37,285	7.1%	0
Amy Klobuchar Klobuchar	16,610	3.1%	0
Tulsi Gabbard Gabbard	6,749	1.3%	0
Andrew Yang Yang	1,044	0.2%	0
Cory Booker Booker	643	0.1%	0
Kamala Harris Harris	0	0.0%	0
Julian Castro Castro	0	0.0%	0

527,728 votes reported from 100% of precincts.

Where candidates did well

Joe Biden was the vote leader in counties across the state. Here's where the top candidates racked up their vote totals.

Biden

Florence

Greenville

Charleston

Columbia

Sanders

Florence

Greenville

Charleston

Columbia

Buttigieg

Florence

Greenville

Charleston

Columbia

Warren

Florence

Greenville

Charleston

Columbia

County-level results

South Carolina’s three most populous counties are Greenville, in its Upstate region bordering North Carolina; Richland, home to Columbia, the state capital; and Charleston, home to the city with the same name and along the Atlantic Ocean. Up the coast from Charleston County is the fourth biggest county, Horry, which is home to Myrtle Beach.

Key counties	Biden	Sanders	Buttigieg	Warren	Steyer	Klobuchar	Yang	Booker	Gabbard
Beaufort	10,911	3,644	2,948	1,648	2,937	1,308	44	32	289
Berkeley	10,569	4,597	1,793	1,495	2,029	527	57	27	383
Charleston	28,292	12,245	8,078	6,932	4,734	2,302	125	51	1,013
Greenville	20,628	13,364	5,684	5,202	5,769	2,351	114	43	830
Horry	13,281	6,757	2,877	1,724	3,841	1,269	74	27	387
Lexington	9,692	5,738	2,571	2,087	2,822	793	51	24	499
Orangeburg	9,079	1,388	240	369	1,686	72	11	24	71
Richland	30,040	10,218	3,958	4,705	7,128	1,084	96	63	489
Spartanburg	9,944	5,850	1,848	1,814	2,904	749	48	24	278
York	11,502	6,514	3,092	2,297	1,237	1,235	61	34	337

Show all counties

Exit poll results

See the strengths and weaknesses of each Democratic candidate according to a survey of South Carolina voters as they exited randomly selected precincts across the state. Exit poll results will be updated as additional interviews are completed and as vote tallies are reported.

See more exit poll results

Race

White

40% OF VOTERS

Biden

Sanders

Buttigieg

Warren

Black

56%

Hispanic/Latino

Not enough respondents to break down details.

Asian

Not enough respondents to break down details.

Other

Not enough respondents to break down details.

Age

17-29

11% OF VOTERS

Biden

Sanders

Buttigieg

Warren

30-44

18%

45-64

42%

65+

28%

Ideology

Very liberal

20% OF VOTERS

Biden

Sanders

Warren

Somewhat liberal

30%

Moderate or conservative

50%

Most important issue in vote

Health care

40% OF VOTERS

Biden

Sanders

Climate change

14%

Race relations

17%

Income inequality

22%

Rather nominate a candidate who...

Agrees with you on major issues

43% OF VOTERS

Biden

Sanders

Can beat Donald Trump

53%

By Peter Andringa, Jason Bernert, Lenny Bronner, Madison Dong, Jess Eng, Simon Glenn-Gregg, Shana Hadi, Jason Holt, Aditya Jain, Isabelle Lavandero, Emily Liu, Erik Reyna, Ashlyn Still and Susan Tyler

Additional contributions from Emily Guskin, Scott Clement and Ann Gerhart

Sources: Edison Research. Exit polls are results from a survey of voters as they entered randomly selected voting sites across South Carolina on primary day, Feb. 29. The poll was conducted by Edison Media Research for the National Election Pool, The Washington Post and other media organizations. Results for typical characteristics have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.