Steyer: ‘I do for sure’ have to finish in top three in South Carolina

Billionaire Tom Steyer said Sunday that he has to finish near the top of the field in the South Carolina Democratic primary after prioritizing the state in his campaign spending and field organizing.

Asked by Fox News’s Chris Wallace if he had to finish in the top three in the Palmetto State after a sixth-place finish in the Nevada caucuses, Steyer responded, “I think I do for sure.”

“But Chris, I think I have done best with black people. I have done best with Latinos. I think that when we get to the diverse Democratic electorate, when we get to the diversity that is America and the Democratic Party, I do a lot better,” Steyer said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“So South Carolina happens to be a place that has a pretty high concentration of African Americans and those happen to be people that I talk to a lot and have a long history of working with and therefore that’s a population where I do really well,” he added.

Asked by Wallace why he believed he would do particularly well among African-American voters, Steyer said it was because he is “very willing to talk about race.”

“I believe there is a substantial racial subtext in virtually every policy area in the United States,” he said, citing, for example, the fact that environmental disasters disproportionately affect nonwhite areas.

Wallace also pressed Steyer on his support for a $22 minimum wage, noting that the Congressional Budget Office has determined that this would likely lead to job losses. Steyer countered by noting that a minimum wage that kept pace with cost of living would be $11.

“If you then looked at the increased productivity of American workers between 1980 and now and split it the way it’s traditionally been split between employers and working people in America, that would get you to the 22 bucks,” Steyer said. “I’m not saying let’s go to 22 bucks, I’m saying that’s the fair number.”