GOOSE CREEK, SC – Kenyatta Grimmage likes to talk about politics with his clients during the 20 minutes or so it takes to cut each other’s hair at Howard’s barber shop, which is owned by blacks and also a school for barber apprentices who it occupies two small ranch houses along a busy road near Charleston’s Naval Weapons Station.
In recent years, talks have been pessimistic about the state of politics in Washington, but Grimmage, 39, said there has been a noticeable change in tone in recent weeks. It is something he has never seen before – an excitement to vote, particularly in the heated race for the United States Senate seat in South Carolina between Republican President Lindsey Graham and his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison.
“It seemed like a lost cause for so long,” said Grimmage, adding that many of his middle-aged and older clients registered to vote for the first time. “It seemed that it didn’t matter whether you voted or not – Lindsey Graham, Republicans, would be elected. But people are more energized now to resist the negativity that we are seeing. Jaime Harrison represents this setback. “
The Harrison-Graham race gained national attention due to the tight numbers of polls among a well-known Republican Party supporter seeking his fourth term and who aligned closely with President Donald Trump, after losing the party’s presidential nomination to him in 2016 and denigrating Trump as the party’s flagship and an insurgent Democrat whose message of restarting political conversation helped him raise $ 57 million in the final weeks of the dispute.
Harrison, 44, who is black and a former state party president, parliamentary adviser and lawyer, was initially considered a long shot – South Carolina hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate in 22 years. But he quickly transformed the state, which voted for Trump by more than 14 points in 2016 and re-elected Graham, who is 65, by a slightly larger margin in 2014, to a question mark in 2020.
Harrison did this by reinvigorating a state Democratic party that, like many in the South, had not received much attention or investment from the national party in recent decades. He helped expand voter reach and took advantage of party members who organized themselves in the state during a primary presidential dispute, which helped secure Joe Biden’s presidential nomination. (Republicans canceled the state primaries.)
Many black voters in the state said Harrison is a candidate who looks like them and has outgrown a working-class education in rural Orangeburg to become the first member of his family to graduate from law school.
“A lot of his story is our story, the story of the African American community,” said JA Moore, a black legislator and a rising Democratic figure in South Carolina who won a state legislature outside Charleston in 2018. ” Most of us are graduates of first generation colleges, most of us have family members to look after when we ‘get it’, most of us are paying off our student loans 15 to 20 years later. Jaime’s story is so identifiable and he can really win – that’s what I think motivates and inspires people. “
Non-white voters represent more than 30% of the state’s electoral registration in this election, according to the South Carolina Electoral Commission. This represents a 28% increase in 2016, which Democratic strategists in South Carolina argue that can be the difference next month.
Another indication of the Democrats’ excitement in South Carolina is the huge fundraiser that Harrison achieved during the third quarter: the $ 57 million broke the previous fundraising record for any Senate race in American history.
“He really has the money now to pay someone to personally meet all possible voters and turn them over to the polls,” said Laurin Manning Gandy, a Democratic operative in the state who helped direct Senator Cory Booker’s presidential campaign in South Carolina , with a laugh.
Jokes were made about whether a candidate could spend that much money in the final weeks of an election cycle, especially in a market as small as South Carolina, but Harrison said he intends.
The initial investment has already increased his name identification to almost 90% in the past few days, compared to less than 20% in February. And although much of the traditional advertising has already been purchased, Harrison said his campaign plans to continue to flood the area through all possible vehicles available to him until election day.
Voters said they continuously see their ads on everything from YouTube and Instagram to banner ads at the bottom of a free calculator app. His message is also reaching the media markets in neighboring states in Augusta, Georgia, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
“As soon as we got $ 1, we spent it and put it back on the field,” said Harrison. “We are ensuring that our message gets across all aspects of the state right now, because this is very important, so you cannot turn on the TV or open your e-mail or anything or open social media without seeing my big brown face. smiling at you. “
Harrison’s campaign gave no details on how they plan to spend the funds, but the money – and what now constitutes one of the country’s best donor lists – puts Harrison in a position to be an influential figure in the Democratic Party after this election cycle. With a crop of Democratic candidates vying for Senate seats across the south, Harrison could help boost them by sharing his money with the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.
It is very likely, however, that Harrison will choose to help rebuild the state party he ruled, something he has already started to do. Figures from the Federal Election Commission show that Harrison’s campaign has channeled nearly $ 500,000 to the Democratic Party of South Carolina in increasing amounts since spring.
Their funding and defense of Democrats in the state could have important implications for electoral disputes, including the state Senate, where Democrats are competitive in disputes that could lead them to take control for the first time since 2000. This could have an effect while the state looks at redistricting next year.
Tyler Jones, a Democratic strategist in South Carolina who helped Congressman Joe Cunningham give up a parliamentary seat held by Republicans in the state for the first time since 1986, said Harrison is helping to raise election disputes with his messages and increasing the voters’ interest.
“If that wave continues to grow and Republicans are simply eliminated, I think there is a decent chance that Republicans will lose some control here,” said Jones. “We haven’t had a majority since I’m in politics, but there is a real chance of winning the state Senate.”
But Harrison and the Democrats in this state will need a broad coalition – not just black voters – to declare victory on November 3.
Harrison, who started out as political director for Representative Jim Clyburn, DS.C., when Clyburn was the majority leader in the House, is well versed in counting votes. He knows how to make mathematics work to pass laws or elect a candidate.
To win in South Carolina, Harrison adopted the model that Graham has used to win elections here since the mid-1990s, although slightly inverted: enlist Democrats, sweep independents and train moderate Republicans.
“He had a kind of center-right coalition that he brought together,” said Harrison of Graham. “And what I’m trying to do is to take my pragmatism, I just want to make sure that we make progress and make South Carolina a better place. And I think that is attractive to a lot of people, especially those who used to support Lindsey Graham. “
What Harrison is betting is that this coalition has moved away from Graham, many questioning the senator’s close relationship with Trump and Graham’s abuse of Democrats, whom he called “crazy” during a debate earlier this month.
This is a significant change from the contests in 2008 and 2014, when Graham specifically courted the Democrats, calling himself in electoral direct mail “an independent voice” known for “crossing party lines” and encouraging voters to “look behind the mask of the ‘Democratic’ candidate for the US Senate “because the candidate did not support the party enough. Many voters said they noticed Graham’s change of opinion.
“It looks like Lindsey Graham is up and down and supports whatever is convenient,” said Ethel Amaker, 71, a native of Harrison’s hometown, Orangeburg. “Now he has been working with the president for a long time and it seems to me that he is just trying to get attention and help himself.”
Mike Hemlepp, 55, said this will be the first election in which he will vote for a direct party ticket. Since Graham first ran for the Senate in 2002, Hemlepp voted for Graham – “because he was a moderate and real Republican” – and a mix of Republicans and Democrats for other positions. This year, Hemlepp will vote for all Democrats.
“We were all proud of him, even if we didn’t agree with him at all,” said Hemlepp, who lives in Columbia, about Graham. “He was never ashamed of us. So Donald Trump was elected and people can debate how and why, but Lindsey Graham has changed. I don’t know what happened to him. “
Graham’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, a Republican who ran a short presidential campaign against Trump in this election cycle, said his state party leaders may have become “complacent and comfortable” after holding power here for decades – which may explain Graham’s absence from the election campaign until recently.
But Sanford said the biggest problem is that “there is a half-life for the caustic and the rude”, especially in polite South Carolina society, and state Republicans have tied themselves too tightly to Trump’s harsh rhetoric, alienating many voters here.
“I don’t know if Trump is going to win or lose, but if he loses, there’s a guy who wins: himself,” said Sanford. “And if he loses, he’ll take a lot of people here in South Carolina with him.”
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The impetus seems to be with Harrison, with polls now showing him shoulder to shoulder with Graham, after dropping almost 15 points earlier this year.
Harrison’s campaign appears to be capturing the way South Carolina and the South in general are changing rapidly. The Republicans’ victory in the South is no longer a sure bet, although they will certainly maintain an advantage in elections across the region.
“They are a little rusty,” said Harrison of the Republican Party. “They didn’t really plan to run against quality candidates who have the resources to get their message across. And so I think that all of these factors have allowed the stars to align here in South Carolina, and I believe that the winds of change in the New South will arise right here in our state. “