Democrats to face off in South Carolina debate

Democrats seeking their party's presidential nomination will take to the stage Tuesday in South Carolina for their final debate before the state's primary on Saturday and just weeks before the crucial Super Tuesday contests.

Former vice-president Joe Biden is counting on the primary to keep his candidacy alive. He finished in second place in Saturday's Nevada caucuses with a strong turnout among black voters, but had fourth- and fifth-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively.

US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, fresh off a victory in Nevada's caucuses, has pulled ahead in state and national polls and is now seen as the Democratic front-runner.

"We're fighting to win in South Carolina," said Jeff Weaver, a top strategist for the self-described democratic socialist, noting that polls show them "moving up considerably on the vice-president" in the Palmetto State.

Biden was at 28 percent support among likely Democratic primary voters in South Carolina, followed by Sanders at 23 percent and billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer at 18 percent, according to a CBS-TV poll released Sunday.

South Carolina, where 60 percent of the Democratic electorate is black, has historically served as a bellwether for how candidates will do with black voters in subsequent states, including those on Super Tuesday like Alabama and North Carolina.

Black voters represent one of Biden's strongest blocs of support. On Sunday, though, he attributed what he said was eroding support among African Americans to Steyer's spending in the state.

"What's happening is you have Steyer spending hundreds of millions, tens of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, out campaigning there," Biden said on CBS' "Face the Nation".

Steyer will be back on the debate stage Tuesday, having qualified after being left out of the Feb 19 Nevada debate, along with US senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

US Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking black lawmaker in Congress in the state, was on TV shows Sunday morning warning that his state wouldn't take kindly to a self-described democratic socialist — Sanders — in local down-ballot contests.

"We are going to let people know how we feel about these candidates, and it may not line up with Nevada or New Hampshire or Iowa," he told ABC News.

Clyburn said that he will endorse a candidate Wednesday. But on Monday, Politico reported that multiple sources said he will support Biden.

In Tuesday's debate, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg will try to recover from his poor performance in Nevada's debate.

Bloomberg was the main target of other candidates and did poorly fighting off criticism that he is a billionaire who is seeking to buy the nomination, for his support of the NYPD policy known as "stop-and-frisk" that often targeted black and Hispanic New Yorkers, and his treatment of women. Bloomberg isn't on the ballot until Super Tuesday on March 3.

Being the front-runner, Sanders is expected to take Bloomberg's place and be the main target Tuesday.

Bloomberg, Biden and former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg were going after Sanders ahead of Tuesday's debate.

On Monday, the Bloomberg campaign portrayed Sanders as a past ally of the National Rifle Association, the gun advocacy group that Bloomberg has fought for more than a decade. It released a video that highlights Sanders' record on gun control and argues that the country needs "a president who is not beholden to the gun lobby".

Sanders says his views on gun control have evolved, and he now backs expanding background checks and banning assault weapons.

The gun control video apparently is part of what NBC News reported on Monday as a multipronged attack by the Bloomberg campaign against Sanders that also will highlight negative aspects of his record on race relations as a member of the US House of Representatives and then as a senator.

On Sunday, Biden criticized Sanders as disloyal to former president Barack Obama. Sanders, in turn, used a rally in the Super Tuesday state of Texas to highlight some favorable polling numbers against President Donald Trump and as an effort to reassure Democrats about his electability.

Buttigieg told supporters that Sanders "believes in an inflexible, ideological revolution that leaves out most Democrats, not to mention most Americans''. He urged voters to "take a sober look at what's at stake" before "we rush to nominate Sanders".