Hey, everyone. I'm David Chalien, the CNN political director, and this is the Daily D.C.

Thanks so much for listening. Today on the podcast, the black vote.

Yes, nothing's monolithic, but the importance of deep support from the African-American community in a race for the Democratic nomination for president cannot be overstated.

It's really important.

A huge substantial chunk of the Democratic nominating electorate is African American.

In some states, like in the state of South Carolina, in the early four states,

and throughout a swath of the South and then throughout the country more broadly,

the African American vote plays an

even greater role than it does nationally if you look at the contest.

But it is critical if you look at the delegate allocations and the state-by-state

where getting to the nomination, getting to that 50% plus one of those pledged delegates, you just can't do it without a substantial portion of the African American community and electorate supporting you.

Which is why you have seen candidates in this Democratic field making very deliberate pitches to African American voters from the moment they got in.

It's not a one and done kind of, oh, we're going to do this on MLK Day or, oh, we're going to go talk to Al Sharpton's group.

You see a pretty consistent and sustained effort in wooing African-American

voters. We saw it this weekend with Joe Biden making his debut trip to South Carolina for this

presidential campaign. And what did you see? You saw a candidate, a front-running candidate who has

deep ties to black voters, deep ties to South Carolina,

where black voters make up a clear majority of the voters in the Democratic primary.

Notice how he refers to President Obama as his buddy Barack.

No mistake there in how he's trying to attach himself to his former boss.

And you see it in his amped up rhetoric also against President Trump.

We don't normally hear Joe Biden call him a clown.

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