For some voters, the Sanders rally Thursday night at Jerry Richardson Indoor Stadium in Spartanburg, South Carolina — a college town of about 40,000 people — was a venue for those who were currently undecided to lend an ear to the socialist democrat’s policies.
“I want to hear what he says,” 54-year-old Anneliese Finch said. “Bottom line — I want a Democrat in the White House.”
The Thursday night rally, which brought in over a thousand people, was majority white and with college-aged students to older attendees, some of them in wheelchairs.
Finch, like other voters who were set on casting their ballots this Feb. 29 no matter if they were currently undecided at the rally, said she was saddened and discouraged by the current mood of the country under the Trump administration.
And though grand in ideals, Sanders still hasn’t quite explained how he’s going to pass such things into actual law, let alone pay for them, something that has irked the more pragmatic voters.
“I think he has some great solutions but how are you going to get them through?,” asked Finch, who said she was also torn between Biden and Buttigieg. “I’m 54 and with two kids in college. I’m probably going to have to work all my life and healthcare and education are very important for me.”
Finch was not the only one, especially like older African-American voters in the state, a group that is 60 percent of the state’s Democratic electorate and one that feels an affinity for Biden due to the former vice president’s connection with the country’s first black president.
Fellow 54-year-old Michael Brown whose five adult children were poised to vote for Sanders said that he was considering voting for billionaire Tom Steyer as he had shown up to his church in Cornerstone, a personal touch that had left a mark on Brown.
The California billionaire has flooded the airwaves in South Carolina with money but his ground game, something that Brown remarked about, had been strong and consistent.
“He’s the most down to earth,” Brown said, though admitting that he was still making up his mind ahead of Primary Day. “My wife is thinking Tom Steyer. I’m still torn.”
Breaking out of that mold was 62-year-old Gloria Hill.
“I’m hyped up and ready. My mind is made up and I’m voting for Bernie,” said Hill, who supported Sanders in 2016 and lives in Pacolet, South Carolina, a rural town of just over 2,000 people. “He’s got humanity. I’m sad by the state of humanity right now and Bernie speaks about all of that racial divide.”
For younger voters, the answer was much clearer.
Chris Knox and Simon Grant, both students at Wofford College, said they were voting for Sanders after the rally.
“This is the first time I’ve been out to a political rally,” Knox, 20, said.
“I’m feeling the Bern,” Grant, 20, added.
Owen Henley, another 20-year-old Wofford student, was working with the Biden campaign in South Carolina.
“I was working in Iowa and now I’m working here,” said Henley, who is registered to vote in North Carolina. “I’ve been going into the poorer communities and many are overwhelmingly supporting Biden.”
Henley, who is white, said that the biggest issue in this primary election was voter turnout in South Carolina. “A lot of the people I’ve been speaking said they don’t feel like voting or that they don’t know the candidates or enough about them.”
Edgar Flores, a Wofford student of Mexican heritage who was going to be voting in his native Georgia, said he was voting for Sanders because of his policies regarding immigration and education.
“What most appeals to me are his reforms for immigration, as my family is made up of immigrants. Education is also very important that needs to be reformed,” Flores, 20, said in Spanish.
Lee Smith, a 31-year-old African-American Spartanburg voter, said that he was without a doubt voting for Sanders on Saturday.
“I think he should do good. I’m constantly arguing with people 40 years old and up about Biden but everyone 40 years and under is not voting for Biden,” Smith said.
For Vivian Nolan, a 53-year-old native Liberian who voted for the first time in an American election in 2016 after obtaining her American citizenship, the matter is personal.
“It was just — is it cold? Because I’m so energized, I don’t even feel (the cold),” Nolan said after the rally. “This man doesn’t change his color. I’m an immigrant… i have never felt so, so fearful for my life. I’m serious. I feel that he is the person that will bring every Democrat, independent and Republican together — people are just so scared because of his conviction.”
Nolan, who came to the United States in the 1980s, said that the country since the 2016 election reminded her more of her native Liberia with the deepening polarization, especially in a red state like South Carolina.
Chika Allen, Nolan’s 27-year-old daughter, said she was a progressive who was fully behind Sanders.
“I have college debt — I agree with Bernie. I’m very left-leaning. I know he’s so out there and that his views seem unattainable. But, you got to at least aim for somewhere?,” Allen said, though she predicted that the Vermont senator would fare poorly in South Carolina.
“Biden here — any bit of blue here in South Carolina is moderate. Bernie? He’s interested in results and I don’t think he’s going to be bipartisan. I’m praying for the best for Bernie. "