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Beto O’Rourke traveled Friday and Saturday to South Carolina, where the job of any primary contender is to secure the support of the nearly two thirds of Democratic primary voters there who are black.

But with the exception of a stop at a historically black college, the former Texas congressman was for the most part turning out white people.

The few hundred people who attended O’Rourke campaign stops Friday at the University of South Carolina and a Charleston brewery were predominantly white. Attendees at those events, including a few “Beto-curious” Republicans, liked his youthful energy but were not committed to supporting him in the critical primary, the third in the nation.

At South Carolina State University, the historically black university, Beto played the white-guy-who-gets-it role, imploring his audience to understand that while he does not have firsthand experience with racial inequality in wealth distribution, healthcare, and incarceration, he absolutely understands it.

“I’ve not led your life – a white man who’s had a privilege in my life of not enduring any one of those things that I just described,” O’Rourke told the crowd. “But I’ve listened to those who have, and I’m listening to you today.”

O’Rourke mentioned legalizing marijuana, changing voter ID laws, expanding Medicaid, and tying federal funds for local law enforcement to “full accountability, transparency, and reporting for use of force.”

SCSU students generally reacted kindly to O’Rourke’s determined effort to please.

“I do feel O’Rourke has a mentality, has a campaign not only garnered around all people, but also restoring the African-American community,” Israel Robinson, a student at SCSU and president of the NAACP campus chapter, told the Washington Examiner. He also likes Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Crowds at USC and SCSU consisted mostly of students who stopped at O’Rourke’s events between classes, interested in his message and attracted to the spectacle of a presidential candidate speaking on campus.

The outdoor, standing-room-only venues with no formal check-in process gave the O’Rourke events an informal feel. His voice was hoarse from eight days of campaigning. At the Charleston event, some attendees left early because it was hard to hear O’Rourke from a small amplifier next to him on a table that he used as a stage.

Booker, by contrast, stormed the state Saturday and attracted a significant number of black attendees, as well as a good share of whites, at well-organized campaign stops in Rock Hill and Columbia with ample seating. He is the first Democratic presidential candidate to earn an endorsement from a sitting South Carolina lawmaker – state Rep. John King, former chairman of the state’s Legislative Black Caucus.

Booker, an African-American former mayor or Newark, N.J., who chooses to live in a low-income community there, sounded much less awkward demonstrating he understands racial inequality.

“I come from a history of people being disrespected, disregarded,” Booker told a crowd of a few hundred at Freedom Temple Ministries in Rock Hill. He shared a story about discrimination his parents decades ago endured when trying to buy a home: They were told that a house was sold when they tried to tour it, but it was available when a white family later looked at it.

Booker had stopped at other South Carolina churches since launching his campaign. Many congregations are politically involved, and some churches shuttle members to the polls on Election Day.

On a stage decorated with a hand-painted “Cory For 2020” banner in front of attendees holding campaign signs, Booker touted his accomplishments as mayor of Newark and as a senator. He focused his message on unity as an antidote for inequality.

“We weren’t called to be a nation of tolerance,” Booker said. “Go home tonight and tell somebody you tolerate them, see how they treat you. We are called to be a nation of love.”

Booker talked about his “baby bonds” bill to address poverty, called for universal background checks for gun sales, and proposed student loan forgiveness for teachers. He said that a 70 percent marginal tax rate was too high but that he wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 25 percent.

Several attendees at Booker’s events thought that he came off as better-versed in policy details than O’Rourke.

Ashley V. Wilkerson, a children’s book author and mother of two young children who saw Booker at the Cecil Tillis Center in Columbia, told the Washington Examiner that he was “far more comprehensive, far more detailed” than several other candidates she’s seen come through South Carolina. “He gave a lot of background knowledge and personal connections to a lot of the topics.” She also likes Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Sen. Kamala Harris of California.

The South Carolina primary is scheduled for Feb. 29, 2020.

Blacks made up 61 percent of the state’s Democratic primary voters in 2016, up from 55 percent in 2008. An Emerson College poll released March 2, before O’Rourke announced his candidacy, found that Booker had six percent Democratic primary support in South Carolina and O’Rourke had five percent. Former Vice President Joe Biden led the field with 37 percent.