Jaime Harrison (D. SC) has a big name in his campaign ad:
Barack Obama has made it clear he wants South Carolinians to vote for Jaime Harrison.
Harrison of South Carolina is gunning for a seat on the U.S. Senate and he has a well-known supporter on his side. Obama released a special video urging voters to place a ballot for Harrison in the upcoming election and says if you want a candidate who will fight, vote for Harrison.
“If you want a Senator that will fight for criminal justice reform, lower college costs, and to make health care affordable, you’ve got to vote for my friend, Jaime Harrison,” said Obama in a press release.
“This year you can vote early or you can vote on election day, November third. Early voting is happening right now. Go to iwillvote.com to find your early vote location, make your plan, and vote for Jaime today.”
Harrison has been working hard to boost voter turnout:
Harrison has done that by reinvigorating a Democratic state party that, like many in the South, had not received much attention or investment from the national party in recent decades. He has helped expand voter outreach and taken advantage of party operatives who organized in the state during a contentious presidential primary, one that helped secure the presidential nomination for Joe Biden. (Republicans canceled their state primary.)
Many Black voters in the state have said that Harrison is a candidate who looks like them and rose above a working-class upbringing in rural Orangeburg to become the first member of his family to graduate from college and attend law school.
“So much of his story is our story, the African American community’s story,” said JA Moore, a Black lawmaker and rising Democratic figure in South Carolina who flipped a state legislative seat at the edge of Charleston in 2018. “Most of us are first-generation college graduates, most of us have family members we take care of once we ‘made it,’ most of us are paying back our student loans 15 to 20 years later. Jaime’s story is so relatable, and he can actually win — that’s what I think is motivating and inspiring folks.”
And that’s where Obama comes in:
Most of the early voters I’ve seen have been Black. Despite efforts to protect voting by mail, most Black voters are choosing not to trust mail-in voting and are showing up in person at early voting spots across the state. Once inside, voters are taking about 10 minutes or less to cast their ballot—which suggests they’re voting a straight Democratic ticket.
I come to work early in the morning and voters are out waiting to vote. When they have to use the restroom (the county building has been pretty much closed since March), they walk across the street to us. They need water, and we’ve given it to them with the joking stipulation (OK, we’re kind of serious) that they come back and buy some barbeque. They need a place to park; park in our lot. Maybe early voting will help Harrison win—but it sure has helped our restaurant financially survive the Covid-19 pandemic.
To have a winnable chance, Harrison needs to come close to, match, or exceed Barack Obama’s 2008 or ’12 turnout numbers. In 2008, though losing the state to his Republican challenger, Obama garnered 862,449 votes—and 865,941 in his second go-round in 2012. Presently, there are over 1 million nonwhite registered voters in the state.
Plus, this is a smart move:
In the closing weeks of South Carolina’s competitive U.S. Senate race, Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison has escalated efforts to elevate the profile of a third-party candidate in an apparent last-minute bid to peel off conservative voters dissatisfied with Republican incumbent Lindsey Graham.
First in digital ads and now in television spots that have begun hitting South Carolina airwaves, Harrison’s ads alert voters to the fact that “right-wing Constitution Party candidate” Bill Bledsoe is still on the ballot and warns them that he is “too conservative for South Carolina.”
The ad’s narrator says Bledsoe “opposes all abortions, “supported Trump from day one,” and “believes any gun control law infringes on the Second Amendment” — positions that would likely appeal to a significant number of conservative voters in South Carolina.
Harrison beating Graham would be historical in many ways:
In an interview with the Guardian Harrison pointed out that Graham’s seat is one that had been occupied by some of the most vocal segregationists in American history. It would be a dramatic contrast for an African American to inherit it.
“The seat that I’m vying for also is a seat that has its own history. This is the seat of John C Calhoun, of Strom Thurmond, of a man called Ben Tillman who talked about lynching black folks on the US Senate.”
With his most recent fundraising haul, Harrison will also show what a Democratic campaign in South Carolina can do with such a huge amount of money. Harrison said his campaign planned to use the money to flood the zone in an all-out effort to win the seat for Democrats.
And Graham is relying on getting Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court has his last chance of hope:
Now, in the final weeks of the election, Graham is staking his campaign on a bet that Barrett’s expected confirmation — and his flip-flop that led to her even getting a hearing — will pull him over the finish line.
“Helping Trump and standing up for Kavanaugh has energized every liberal to take me out,” Graham told reporters after a rally outside the North Charleston Coliseum, referring to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “And the people in South Carolina are getting pissed about this. There’s a backlash looming.”
The “pissed” coalition Graham is relying on includes conservatives as well as voters in the middle. But Graham throughout his career has drawn the ire of the right, and President Donald Trump is struggling with moderates and independent voters — a double whammy that could spell the defeat of one of America’s most prominent politicians in a reliably Republican state.
But Harrison has been working hard to peel away Graham’s moderate support:
One Harrison TV spot shows clips of Graham from the 2016 campaign, when he seemed appalled by Trump. Then, the ad cuts to more recent statements where Graham proclaims, "No, I don't think he's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. I like the president. I am like the happiest dude in America right now."
Some South Carolina voters, like real estate agent Melinda Nicholson, are mystified by Graham moving from such a close friendship with McCain to his current friendship with Trump.
"I'm just not pleased," Nicholson says of Graham. "It's like he's Trump's minion, and I don't like that."
That opinion comes from a Democrat, but Nicholson quickly explains that she has voted for Graham every time he has run for Senate. This year, she says, "I'm voting for Jaime Harrison."
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Let's keep up the momentum to flip South Carolina Blue. Click below to donate and get involved with Harrison, Biden and their fellow South Carolina Democrats campaigns:
Jaime Harrison
Joe Biden
Joe Cunningham
Adair Ford Boroughs