Here’s some encouraging news out of South Carolina courtesy of today Morning Consult’s poll:
From the results:
That’s a pretty good position to be in to pull off an upset victory. Harrison has been heavily investing in black turnout but he’s also leaning heavily on. Graham’s weaknesses:
But to win, the Democrat will also need Graham’s weakness—his historically uneasy relationship with the hardcore GOP grassroots—to come back and haunt him, in the form of Trump supporters skipping the Senate line of their ballot. While there are strong indications these voters will back Graham, the recent New York Times poll found 11 percent of Republicans aren’t supporting him—a margin that could prove significant in a close race.
To that end, Harrison and his allies are also exploiting a newer weakness for Graham: third-party candidate Bill Bledsoe. A hard-line conservative, Bledsoe dropped out of the race and endorsed Graham, but did not exit quickly enough to get his name off the ballot.
In an eleventh-hour media blitz, Harrison’s campaign is elevating Bledsoe in ads by attacking him as too conservative—but in doing so, the would-be attack ad offers up right-wing voters a laundry list of things to like about him, namely his unwavering support of Trump. And the Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump PAC, ran ads calling Bledsoe “the real deal” for South Carolina.
But it’s still all about getting out the vote:
“Lindsey Graham thought it was going to be a cakewalk,” said House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn in an interview with the Prospect. In a state that has voted Democratic for president just once since 1960, and hasn’t had a Democratic senator since Fritz Hollings, the last of the “Solid South” Democrats who retired in 2005, that was perhaps a reasonable assumption. But since Harrison first announced his campaign, he’s built support across all demographics with a motivated base of Black voters as well as white voters of all ages, a rainbow coalition that’s observable at his rallies. Clyburn says anecdotally he even knows some Trump voters who will also be filling in the bubble next to Harrison’s name on their ballots.
Clyburn adds that people underestimated the network of support Harrison built as chair of the state Democratic Party, and how well Harrison, who was born and raised in Orangeburg, connects with voters in the Palmetto State.
In the final weekend of the campaign, Harrison traversed the state, alongside his political mentor Clyburn, who introduced him at events in Hollywood and North Charleston. Brian and Ashley Shannon, of Summerville, sat in the trunk of their car with their two daughters for the North Charleston rally on Sunday, their first-ever political drive-in event. Their young girls wore matching “Future President” T-shirts and cheered with their parents along with the chorus of honking cars.
Meanwhile, Graham keeps on isolating more voters:
Lindsey Graham has said young women in America can accomplish anything they want if they are pro-life, embrace religion, and follow a traditional family structure.
The Republican Senator for South Carolina cited Judge Amy Coney Barrett as a role model when speaking at a campaign event in Conway, South Carolina.
“You know what I like about Judge Barrett? She's got everything,” the senator said. “She's not just wicked smart, she's incredibly good. She embraces her faith.
“I want every young woman to know there's a place for you in America if you are pro-life, if you embrace your religion, and you follow traditional family structure. That you can go anywhere, young lady,” he added.
And the only people that want to keep Graham in the Senate are billionaires:
Locked in a tight race for his Senate seat, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina received a last-minute boost from out-of-state billionaires in early October, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.
Idaho’s Frank VanderSloot, worth an estimated $3.5 billion, contributed $300,000 to a pro-Graham super-PAC named Security is Strength. Florida’s Laura Perlmutter, the wife of Marvel Comics king Ike Perlmutter, donated $250,000. Sandwich tycoon Jimmy John Liautaud, also of Florida, gave $150,000. Massachusetts shoe baron Jim Davis, of New Balance, contributed $100,000. In all, eight billionaires and their spouses gave about $1.1 million to the group during the first two weeks of October. At least $4 million more came from so-called “dark money” groups, which can funnel money into the political system without disclosing their donors.
The recent donations brought the super-PAC’s total fundraising to $10.9 million since the start of 2019. About 25% of that money is traceable to billionaires, none of who live in South Carolina. The biggest individual donors are Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, who each gave $500,000 in July 2019.
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