Polling by The Washington Post and Ipsos released a week ago found Biden at 48 percent with black voters nationally, compared with Sanders at 20 percent and Warren at 9 percent. Buttigieg received only 2 percent support among black voters, less than the 4 percent who back former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. A recent Fox News poll of South Carolina had Biden with 43 percent among black voters in the state, trailed by billionaire Tom Steyer at 16 percent. (They also finished one-two overall among Democratic primary voters.)

Warren surrogate Leslie Mac encountered a hefty dose of skepticism as she toured beauty salons last weekend on behalf of the Massachusetts senator.

“What’s Elizabeth Warren been doing, what has she been doing for the African American community until now?” Tina Rodgers, 53, asked when Mac started a conversation about Warren in the mostly empty Greenville salon.

“She created the Consumer Financial ... Protection Bureau,” said Mac, who paused before recalling the full name of the agency. Mac explained that the bureau cracked down on predatory lenders, before diving into Warren’s upbringing in Oklahoma and her family’s brush with bankruptcy.

Mac is co-founder of Black Womxn For, an activist group of more than 100 black women that includes black transgender and gender nonconforming women. The group endorsed Warren in November.

“Black people are rightfully suspicious of things they don’t know, so that’s why name recognition becomes critical,” Mac said after the encounter. So she asks people: “Do you want more of the same or do you want to dream bigger than what we have?”

But battling Biden’s name ID isn’t easy. And the air of inevitability around Biden is based largely on the collective knowledge that he is far and away the leading candidate with black South Carolinians.

Antonio Robinson, 42, who works in education and lives in Goose Creek, wants to vote for Andrew Yang, but he’s come to accept that Biden is a foregone conclusion in South Carolina.

“[People] don’t know Elizabeth Warren, they don’t know Yang,” said Robinson.

“In South Carolina we were taught to vote straight party. You see black people [on the ballot], you see Democrat, you vote straight party. You’re not used to seeing 10 damn candidates in the first place,” added Robinson. The menu of choices plays to Biden’s benefit because he’s a known commodity, Robinson said.

It’s a situation that irritates JA Moore, a Democratic state lawmaker who previously backed Kamala Harris and is now being courted by other hopefuls. Moore said Biden's supporters have perpetuated the narrative that he’s unbeatable in the state, so voters should just get on board.

“It’s a disservice to all South Carolinians for elected officials, especially African American elected officials,” Moore said, adding that if South Carolina is seen as being in the bag for Biden it makes the state less relevant in the battle for the nomination.

Moore said he has a hard time relating to inevitability after overcoming what appeared to be insurmountable odds to defeat the Republican state House majority whip in 2018. He relayed his discomfort to Biden during a phone call last weekend, and the former vice president responded by citing polls that show him ahead in the first four states and Super Tuesday states.