“Emotion is a huge part of what goes into my photographs,” says Sinna Nasseri, who documented the days leading up to last Saturday’s South Carolina primary. It was the fourth election Nasseri documented for Vogue; he previously followed the campaign trail to Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.
As it turned out, South Carolina was the last election with a full panoply of Democratic candidates. Being the first deciding state with a majority-black electorate, South Carolina was responsible for Joe Biden’s first victory. This shifted the contest considerably: Not long after, Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden, followed shortly by Amy Klobuchar. Today we’ll see what kind of impact this outcome and support will have for Biden’s campaign and the rest of the race.
In this fast-moving, roller-coaster political season, there are now only five hopefuls—Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, and former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg—vying in today’s historic Super Tuesday elections. (It is super not just for the sheer number of states involved—14, including California and Texas, with a third of the pledged delegates up for grabs—but also in the sense that whoever triumphs in these contests may well have the inside track to the Democratic nomination.)
Nasseri took his camera to rallies across the state and further afield: to a National Action Network breakfast, a metaphysical healing convention. “Most touching for me are always my conversations and time photographing regular people who are removed from politics,” Nasseri says. These images capture ordinary Americans living their everyday lives—yet who among us in this great country is ordinary? Are we not, as a nation, fiercely extraordinary, vociferous in our independence, quirky—sometimes even relentless—in the defense of our beliefs? He describes a woman who insisted on her right to not vote. She told him: “As human beings, we have strayed away from connecting with the depths of ourselves, and we look outside for other people to fix things. I’m very much interested in love and kindness and not falling into that feeling.” And though we do hope everyone who is looking at these photographs, and is moved by them, will vote, they do indeed brim with that love and kindness.
