Joe Biden speaking in South Carolina, where he won the Democratic primary (Image: Getty)

       Joe Biden cruised to a fast victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary tonight - with the result declared after just 23 minutes.

       Polls closed at 7pm EST and the result was widely called at 7:23pm, confirming a quick night's work for the current President. As of 7:46pm and just 16 percent of the vote in, Biden was leading with 30,230 votes (96.8 percent) and 42 of 55 delegates.

       It reinforces expectations of a Biden-Donald Trump face-off for the White House on election day, held on November 5.

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       Biden, 81, beat Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson on the South Carolina ballot.

       “In 2020, it was the voters of South Carolina who proved the pundits wrong, breathed new life into our campaign, and set us on the path to winning the presidency,” Biden said in a statement.

       READ MORE: South Carolina Democratic primary updates as Biden wins early victory

       Voters cast their ballots in South Carolina's Democratic primary on Saturday (Image: Getty)

       "Now in 2024, the people of South Carolina have spoken again and I have no doubt that you have set us on the path to winning the Presidency again — and making Donald Trump a loser — again.”

       The Associated Press declared Biden the winner at 7:23pm based on an analysis of initial vote results showing him with a decisive lead in key locations throughout the state.

       His win comes after he led a Democratic National Committee effort to have South Carolina go first in the party’s primary, citing the state’s more racially diverse population compared to the traditional first-in-the-nation states of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are overwhelmingly white.

       South Carolina is reliably Republican, but 26 percent of its residents are Black. In the 2020 general election, Black voters made up 11 percent of the national electorate, and nine in 10 of them supported Biden, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of that election’s voters.

       Biden pushed for a revamped primary calendar that will see Nevada go second, holding its primary on Tuesday. The new order also moves the Democratic primary in Michigan, a large and diverse swing state, to February 27, before the expansive field of states voting on March 5, known as Super Tuesday.

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       President Joe Biden spoke to staff of his campaign in Delaware on Saturday morning (Image: Getty)

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       Biden was in Delaware — not South Carolina — on Saturday before leaving for a trip to California and Nevada. He attended an open house at his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, telling supporters: “I’m feeling good about where we are.”

       The president said voters around the country are beginning to focus on the election and “the polling data is picking up across the board.”

       “We cannot, we cannot, we cannot lose this campaign, for the good of the country,” Biden said before leaving on a weekend trip.

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       He appeared with first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

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