(Greenville, SC) - Former Vice President Joe Biden was always considered the front runner in the Palmetto State and pre-primary polls agreed. The only point the polls missed was the strength of Biden's support in South Carolina.
In results from Saturday, Biden crushed the competition taking over 48 percent of the vote. The next closest candidate was Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders with just under 20 percent. Billionaire businessman Tom Steyer came in third with just over 11 percent.
Fallout from the primary was swift with Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who came in a distant fourth, ending his campaign as did Tom Steyer. Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg was on the Democrat Debate stage in Charleston prior to the primary but was not on the ballot. However as the candidates quickly fanned out to the 14 Super Tuesday states, the remaining Democrats will find out how much support Bloomberg's multi-million dollar ad campaign has bought him.
So what impact did Operation Chaos have? That was an effort by Republicans to cross over and vote in the open Democratic primary since the SC GOP cancelled their presidential preference primary in deference to President Trump's support in the state.
According to scvotes.org the total number of voters in Saturday's primary was around 529,000, that is well above the 371,000 that voted in the 2016 Democrat presidential primary, but just below the 532,000 that voted in the 2008 Democrat presidential primary. If the goal was to get Bernie Sanders a win South Carolina, it didn't work.