President Joe Biden is looking to rekindle the South Carolina magic that vaulted him into the White House, hiring four Democratic operatives here to lead his 2024 reelection in the state that's the first test of his political strength.
Scott Harriford will serve as Biden's South Carolina state director, while both Clay Middleton and Jalisa Washington-Price will serve as senior South Carolina political advisers, the campaign announced Dec. 4.
Rounding out the team is Brady Quirk-Garvan, former head of the Charleston County Democratic Party, who will act as a South Carolina adviser for Biden's reelection bid.
The hiring moves, which were first shared with The Post and Courier, are a crucial step as Biden looks to assert himself as the party's undisputed leader in the state that could set the tone and momentum as he seeks his second term in the White House.
The Biden campaign declined to comment when asked about the president's plans to physically campaign in South Carolina.
So far, the Biden effort has relied heavily on surrogates. Most recently, Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in South Carolina on Biden’s behalf, making a surprise visit to the state to file Biden's paperwork for the recognized first-in-the-nation Democratic primary.
The news of Biden's South Carolina team was announced almost exactly one year after Biden in a letter urged Democrats to retool their nominating calendar, scrap the "restrictive" caucus and elevate Black voters by making South Carolina the first primary state in 2024, replacing Iowa and New Hampshire.
Three of Biden's key staffers for South Carolina are African Americans, including one Black woman. In South Carolina, Black voters accounted for more than half of the Democrats who voted in the state’s Democratic presidential primary in 2020, according to CNN exit polling.
South Carolina's Feb. 3 primary will represent the first time Biden has faced a contested election since 2020, squaring off against a pair of long-shot contenders: Dean Phillips, a Minnesota congressman, and self-help author Marianne Williamson.
Both argue that Biden is in danger of losing a 2024 rematch against Donald Trump, the former president and current front-runner for the Republican nomination.
South Carolina's most high-profile Democrat, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, is not concerned. In a statement, Clyburn said the campaign Biden has put together is a "seasoned, skillful South Carolina team" that will "lead the Biden-Harris coalition to victory in South Carolina and the nation in 2024."
Clyburn, whose coveted endorsement three days before the 2020 primary helped pave the way for Biden’s path to the White House, is also a national campaign co-chair for Biden’s reelection bid.
"South Carolina Democrats have been the best preparers of our party’s nominees for decades, and we are thrilled to have been given the opportunity to continue playing this historic role in nominating Joe Biden for reelection next year," Clyburn said. "Every candidate who has won the South Carolina primary in recent years has gone on to be our nominee and get the majority of the popular vote in the general election, and no one knows that better than President Biden."
Leading that effort in South Carolina is Harriford, a 2020 Biden South Carolina campaign alum, who later landed a job in the Biden administration as a White House liaison at the Small Business Administration.
The Columbia native worked on the 2020 Biden campaign as the South Carolina political director, and after the primary election he became the Southeastern political director for the Biden-Harris campaign.
He most recently helped lead Sen. Deon Tedder of Charleston's hard-fought campaign in the S.C. Senate District 42 Democratic primary and previously worked for former U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham, D-Charleston, as a field representative.
In the 2018 election cycle, Harriford worked on the campaign of South Carolina’s Democratic nominee for governor, James Smith.
But the hires also mean Biden now has top 2020 South Carolina staffers from the campaigns of both Kamala Harris and Cory Booker on his 2024 team.
Washington-Price was the South Carolina state director for Harris in 2020 and later went on to work on the 2020 Biden-Harris presidential campaign as senior political adviser to then-vice presidential candidate Harris.
In 2020, she was named to Fortune Magazine’s 40 under 40 list in government and politics, and in 2016 she worked on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Middleton, who recently ran for Charleston mayor, worked as senior adviser for Booker's 2020 presidential campaign. He also worked as S.C. political director for Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign during the general election and as regional political director in Florida for Clinton in 2016.
Quirk-Garvan resigned as chairman of the Charleston County Democratic Party so he could openly support Booker's 2020 campaign. After graduating from the College of Charleston, he went on to work for Obama's 2008 campaign in the swing state of Ohio before returning to South Carolina.
Biden did not register for New Hampshire's primary, which is scheduled in January in defiance of the White House's wishes to move the date back.
Phillips and Williamson will compete in the primary, but the Democratic National Committee has warned that such a move would lead to an unsanctioned primary that could trigger sanctions, including New Hampshire potentially losing delegates to the 2024 Democratic convention in Chicago.