NORTH CHARLESTON, SC – Senator Lindsey Graham is in the political struggle of his life less than a month from election day. In this solid Republican state, Graham finds himself in a tie with his well-funded Democratic challenger, former Democratic President Jaime Harrison, who defied expectations.
South Carolina is rarely a battleground outside of the presidential primaries, and the last Democrat elected by the state to the Senate was Ernest Hollings, who served from 1966 to 2005. Now, Graham’s chair has been placed in a growing mix of chairs in the Senate held by Republicans who determine control of the upper house for the next two years.
Several factors make the race much more competitive than most thought it would have been just six months ago, including a divisive president who is losing support between women and independents, as well as African-American enthusiasm for Harrison and the Democratic presidential ticket.
Recent research by Quinnipiac University showed that the race tied for 48 percent among likely voters, and the Cook Political Report changed the perspective of the race on Wednesday from “lean Republican” to “launched”.
And President Donald Trump’s statement on Tuesday that he would no longer support another Congressional Covid-19 aid package was another potential blow to Graham, who tweeted Wednesday urging the president and Senate Republicans to take a fresh look at how to make a deal.
Amid all the noise from the White House, Graham tried to balance the appeals to independent and Trump-based women, constituents who are an important part of the issues.
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Graham bet that staying closely linked to the president will help his chances of re-election. But he is not as popular as the president of the state. In the Quinnipiac poll, 86% of Republicans have favorable opinions for Graham, compared with 93% who say they have favorable opinions for Trump.
Graham’s challenge is to ensure that Trump’s most loyal supporters also vote for him, rather than leaving the Senate race blank.
Harrison is trying to highlight these divisions, flooding the radio waves, especially in parts of the state where conservative voters are more likely to hold Graham’s support for comprehensive immigration reform four years ago against him, as well as his criticisms of Trump in 2016 , when he known as Trump a “con man”, among other things.
On October 1, Harrison and the Democratic allies spent $ 29 million on television advertising, compared to just $ 10.7 million for Graham and the Republicans, according to the Advertising Analytics ad tracking. And 25% of pro-Harrison advertising was done in the northwestern part of the state, which includes Greenville and Spartanburg, where Trump has significant support.
Graham, who hopes to win his fourth term, hopes that his leadership role in hearings to confirm Supreme Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett will help strengthen his support among the Republican base and persuade center-right independents, including women, to support him. it.
“We are not going to stop doing our job in Washington as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I promise you,” Graham said on Saturday in the first debate against Harrison at Allen University, a historically black college in Columbia. “We are going to put Judge Barrett in court safely.”
Jack, a voter who did not disclose his surname, said he continues to support Graham and to press to confirm Barrett before election day. “I just think it has been tested and proven,” he said of Graham.
Harrison’s campaign hit Graham for reversing his promise not to accept a nomination in an election year, highlighting his now famous statements about that moment in 2016 and 2018.
“His promise was that no judicial candidate should be considered or approved or whatever in the last year of an election,” Harrison told Graham during the debate.
He appealed to Graham to “just be a man of what you do and get up and say, ‘You know what, I changed my mind'”.
Travis Holmes, who voted on Monday in North Charleston during the first day of absentee voting, said he had supported Graham in the past, but had voted for Harrison on Monday “because of the turnaround”.
“I will vote for Lindsey Graham if he is consistent, but how can I vote if he is not consistent?” he said.
Meanwhile, Graham is also trying to exploit Harrison’s leadership among independents, especially women. The Quinnipiac poll showed Harrison leading Graham among the independents by 54% to 39%. And both Harrison and presidential candidate Joe Biden are 10 points ahead of their Republican opponents among women.
To gain ground, Graham is painting Harrison as a far left liberal, linking him to Mayor Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The left is “crazy,” Graham said in the debate, referring to his anger at the confirmation of Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh. “They hate me. This is not Mr. Harrison.”
Harrison promises to be an “independent voice” for South Carolina. Harrison said he does not support the evacuation of the police or the Green New Deal, which he calls “very partisan and very expensive”.
Although the vote is close, Harrison has yet to overcome the fact that South Carolina is a conservative state.
There is no party-based voter registration here, but 2016 polls indicate that Republicans make up about 46% of the electorate, Democrats about 27% and independents about 26%, making it difficult for a Democrat to win across the board. state.
The Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC to help elect Senate Republicans, invested $ 10 million to help Graham last week. The investment came days after the Senate Democrats’ super PAC, the Senate Majority Fund, invested $ 6.5 million more for Harrison – both representing a lot of money in South Carolina’s cheap media markets.
In-person voting began on Monday with long lines outside the polling stations. The State Elections Commission had already issued more than 350,000 absentee ballots more than a month before election day.
If Harrison beat Graham in South Carolina, the first state to split from the Union because of slavery, he would be the first state to have two black senators – one from each party.