SELMA, March 2 — Joe Biden, fresh off a victory in South Carolina propelled by black voters, commemorated yesterday a landmark civil rights march in Alabama, while some worshippers at an African-American church turned their backs on his presidential rival Michael Bloomberg.

Biden and the others competing for the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in November are racing toward Super Tuesday nominating contests this week in 14 states, including Alabama. Biden, whose win in Saturday's South Carolina primary galvanised his campaign, traded jabs with the current front-runner, Senator Bernie Sanders, in Sunday television interviews.

Bloomberg, a former New York mayor, received a chilly reception at the historic Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma after the pastor, the Rev. Leodis Strong, told the gathering the billionaire businessman initially had turned down the invitation to speak.

"I was hurt, I was disappointed,” Strong said as Bloomberg looked on stonily. "I think it's important that he came, and it shows a willingness on his part to change.”

About 10 people in the small church with a couple hundred in attendance stood up and turned their backs on Bloomberg as he spoke about racial inequality.

Biden and Bloomberg are trying to present themselves as the party's best choice to take on Trump, saying Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is too far to the left to win the general election.

Black voters are a key Democratic constituency, and Bloomberg has been criticised for supporting the use of a policing practice called stop and frisk in New York City that encouraged police to stop and search pedestrians and disproportionately affected blacks and Latinos.

"It's just an insult for him to come here. It's the disrespect for the legacy of this place,” Lisa Brown, who travelled to Selma from Los Angeles, told Reuters after turning her back to Bloomberg. She said the idea to protest Bloomberg's remarks had circulated but that she stood as an individual, not an organised group.

The quiet protest suggests Bloomberg may have an uphill climb with some African-American voters, who carried Biden to a resounding victory in South Carolina.

Crowd favourite

Biden, who was vice president to the first black US president, Barack Obama, was clearly the favorite at the Selma church. He was seated by the pastor, facing the pews where Bloomberg sat, and got a glowing introduction from US Representative Terri Sewell, a black Alabama lawmaker.

"He has earned the right to be in this pulpit and to address you now,” Sewell told the crowd.

Democratic contenders Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar sat on folding chairs at the margins of the congregation. The pastor chided Tom Steyer, who dropped out of the race after finishing third in South Carolina, to sit down, saying: "This is a house of God, this is not a political rally.”

The candidates were in Selma to mark the 55th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday,” when civil rights marchers were beaten by state troopers and local police while crossing a bridge. The candidates joined a march that retraced the path of the original incident.

Bloomberg skipped the first four state nominating contests including South Carolina but has blanketed the country with about US$500 million (RM billion) in advertising and will be on the ballot for the first time tomorrow, when the biggest prizes are California and Texas.

He has made a concerted effort to reach out to black voters, including apologies for overseeing the stop-and-frisk policy, which a federal judge found was an unconstitutional form of racial profiling.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll of registered Democrats and independents, conducted February 19-25, showed Bloomberg garnering the support of 20 per cent of black voters, third among Democratic candidates behind Sanders (26 per cent) and Biden (23 per cent).

At least five Super Tuesday states — Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and Virginia — have big blocs of African-American voters.

'Not a socialist'

Biden won overwhelmingly in South Carolina, drawing 48 per cent of the votes cast, compared with 20 per cent for Sanders. Edison Research exit polls showed Biden with 61 per cent of African-American support there to Sanders' 17 per cent.

Sanders' calls for a political revolution have rattled a Democratic Party establishment.

"I think the Democratic Party is looking for a Democrat — not a socialist, not a former Republican, a Democrat — to be their nominee,” Biden told Fox News Sunday.

Biden's reference to a former Republican appears to have been aimed at Bloomberg, who switched parties multiple times in his career.

Sanders attacked Biden for taking contributions from political organisations called Super PACs and billionaires, at what he said was the expense of working-class, middle-class and low-income people.

"I don't go to rich people's homes like Joe Biden,” Sanders said on CBS' Face the Nation.

Biden lags Sanders in fundraising and organisation in Super Tuesday states and beyond.

Sanders planned to campaign yesterday in heavily Democratic California, where he leads opinion polls.

The Sanders campaign said overnight it raised US$46.5 million (RM195.8 million) from more than 2.2 million donations in February, a huge sum dwarfing what any other Democratic candidate raised last year in any three-month period.

Biden reported his February haul was US$18 million. Warren's campaign said she raised more than US$29 million last month.

Bloomberg continues to spend. He purchased three minutes of commercial air time during on broadcast networks CBS and NBC yesterday evening to address the coronavirus outbreak. — Reuters