the impeachment of president trump, next week, the house will vote on impeachment articles -- impeachment managers. watch the process light on c-span, on c-span.org/impeachment, and listen on the c-span radio app. joining us on the phone in south carolina. i want to put on the screen numbers. it shows the state of the race in south carolina. this is a summary of the most recent polls with joe biden at 15%, elizabeth warren, tom steyer at 8%. pete buttigieg at 6%. these numbers have been consistent over the last couple of months. why? president hasvice

had a durable base of support in south carolina. the best-known of the candidates. by blackwed favorably voters in south carolina who make up a majority of the democratic electorate in south carolina, 61% in 2016. partly because of his association with obama, partly because of the fact he has been coming to south carolina for many years and has relationships year. he has been popular with that group of folks and it has been hard for the other candidates to chip away at it. they have been competing for second so far. his lead has not really diminished. it will be interesting to see whether the result in iowa, the result in a new hampshire will

have any impact on that. that has been the state of the race for several months here. >> the voted to south carolina begins in iowa and then a new hampshire and the person the south primary of south carolina. for the joe biden campaign, is a if hecarolina a firewall fares poorly in the other states? they have tried to avoid using that word, but it is clear that is the case. i have spoken to folks on his campaign and the vice president himself as far back as last summer in an interview, i asked whether he viewed this as a state where if things did not go as well in iowa as he hoped, not as well in new hampshire, this could be a stuffed light a place a placethe bleeding -- to stop the bleeding and when some states.

it has been historically a bellwether for other southern states. there are a lot of delegates in the south. say itf strategists will is a ordinarily hard to win the democratic nomination without winning the black votes. carolina is the first test of a candidates strength with the black vote. as aiden sees that stronger situation for him than some of those whiter, more progressive states earlier on. >> we are talking with a political reporter. from joining us via skype south carolina. as you look at the political demographics of south carolina, it is a republican state in the general election. what about in a primary? where are the democratic votes in your state? hotbed of democratic

votes is columbia. democrats will point out there have been growing -- they had been growing their numbers in democratic where a candidate for congress one for the first time last year in 2018 in 40 years, the first time a democrat has represented charleston in 40 years. greenville in the upstate has historically been viewed as the conservative stronghold, but the city of greenville has started to add democrats. they are spread out, but columbia and richmond county in the middle of the state had been the most frequent campaign stops for a lot of these candidates because it does have the most amount of democratic voters. candidates have tried to get all over the state and demonstrate -- south carolina is a state that has a bond of rural areas and we have seen candidates go

to towns to demonstrate that they will be a president that will work on behalf of all the people, not just the folks in the cities. aboutare here to talk politics, but i want to ask about lindsey graham. there is a story that his democratic challenger in at least one survey statistically tied. how competitive is the senate race going to be? >> it has been harder to read the polls because they have been all over the map. and senator early ,raham's calendar -- challenger he raised by far the most money, he is still relatively unknown in south carolina. he was the former democratic party chairman, but that is not outside ofn person party politics. he now works at the dnc. he ran against tom perez after the 2016 election.

money, whichon of is the first step to making a competitive election. senator graham has also raised a ton of money, even more. they have both set fundraising record. this will be an expensive a race. i cannot imagine we will get national attention because of senator graham's profile. it will be an uphill climb no matter what for jamie harrison. i think he will admit that himself. never say never in this profession. >> one final question, tom steyer the billionaire has doubled his support approaching double digits, he is at 80% or 9% depending on the polls. -- 8% or 9%. why is he moving up? >> it is impossible to turn on a television, radio, a computer in south carolina right now without seeing tom steyer very quickly.

he has completely blanketed the state with ads for several months now. he is all over tv when other candidates have not been on tv at all or barely out been on tv. other candidates had put a couple adds up. you have billboards. state ande the nevada's top priorities. it appears to be paying off. competingl mostly with senator sanders, senator warren for the second spot. no one is encroaching on joe biden at this point. the fact tom steyer has gone from a candidate who nobody knew before this campaign cycle to that position is certainly an interesting story to watch. porter,od clot rob joint -- a