Biden courts Nevada after crushing South Carolina win

CHARLESTON, United States: US President Joe Biden set his sights on Sunday on the Nevada primary, a day after his overwhelming victory in South Carolina brought a tense rematch with Donald Trump another step closer.

The 81-year-old Democrat will speak at two campaign events in the gambling city of Las Vegas, where he is odds-on favorite in Tuesday´s vote to continue his march towards the party´s nomination.

Nevada is a battleground state which has largely voted for the White House winner in recent decades and which backed Biden in 2020 by a narrow margin -- less than 35,000 votes separated him from then-president Trump.

In South Carolina, Biden scored 96.2 percent in his expected win in the country´s first official primary, where Democrats were watching whether he could woo Black voters who helped propel him to the White House in 2020.

His campaign said that in Las Vegas Biden would “speak directly to voters about the stakes of this election”, which he has framed as a battle for US democracy against twice-impeached Republican frontrunner Trump.

Biden returned to the theme in his victory statement after South Carolina, where his rivals, self-help author Marianne Williamson and congressman Dean Phillips, scored two percent or less.

Addressing the southern US state´s voters, he said: “I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the Presidency again -- and making Donald Trump a loser -- again.