Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Jaime Harrison, Democratic candidate for Senate, greets supporters after a drive-in rally in Anderson, South Carolina, October 31, 2020.
Ten years ago, the South Carolina Democratic Party was so moribund that Alvin Greene, an unemployed veteran who made no appearances and had no yard signs or advertising, won the nomination for a U.S. Senate seat. Greene, who became a cable news celebrity for his erratic interviews, didn’t spend much more than the $10,440 filing fee on the entire race. This year, Jaime Harrison, who brought the party back as state chair from 2013 to 2017, has spent an unheard-of $100 million, the most for a single Senate race in history, as he challenges a suddenly vulnerable Lindsey Graham. Polls show the closest Senate contest in the Palmetto State in decades. How did this happen in perhaps the quintessential conservative state?
“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. Ryan 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.
“I grew up being able to make choices for my body and choices for our future and I want them to have the same future,” Ashley says, gesturing to her daughters. The family was most excited to see Harrison at the event and plans to vote for the straight Democratic ticket on Tuesday. “I’ll wait for as long as I have to and do whatever I need to,” Ryan adds, of their voting plan.
The drive-in rally was just one of eight events Harrison attended on Saturday and Sunday. Harrison joked that he’s changing South Carolina’s state motto until Tuesday from “While I breathe, I hope” to “While I breathe, I vote.” That declaration garnered a traffic jam’s worth of honking.
Harrison’s campaign war chest can be easily seen while driving around the state. His bright-blue lawn signs are ubiquitous on most highways, as are his TV and radio ads—including an ad for third-party candidate Bill Bledsoe in the middle of the Sean Hannity Show paid for by Harrison for Senate. This has proven controversial, as Bledsoe has withdrawn from the race and endorsed Graham, though too late to get his name off the ballot. Bledsoe has decried the “dirty tricks” from the Harrison campaign.
Not dissimilar to Beto O’Rourke’s Senate challenge against Ted Cruz in Texas, Harrison has become a national figure, as liberals rally to take out a longtime loathed foe in Graham. Last quarter, Harrison smashed O’Rourke’s fundraising record, by bringing in $57 million from July to September. But beyond one race, the work is energizing the Democratic Party in the heart of Old Dixie.
“One of Lindsey Graham’s strategies is to argue that Democrats from outside South Carolina [are getting involved], but there’s long been a Democratic Party and a Democratic base,” says Vernon Burton, a historian and professor at Clemson University. “One of the things that Harrison has done is really help organize that party.”
Harrison’s fundraising abilities—a skill he no doubt picked up as party chair—have helped Democrats advertise for candidates up and down the ballot this cycle, and recruit more volunteers for the final sprint to get out the vote.
Outside of the final debate in Columbia, volunteer coordinator Valerie Moore said she plans to canvass through Election Day for Harrison, in addition to her weekends already spent talking to voters in Richland County. Moore was part of a visibility group of about 20 volunteers waving “Harrison for Senate” and “Lindsey Graham for Sale” signs, attracting honks from cars passing by.
If Harrison wins on Tuesday, he would be taking up a position held by some of the most infamous segregationists in U.S. history.
Moore met Harrison after the 2016 election, when the former Hillary Clinton volunteer says that after she helped pack up the campaign office on a “sad, sad day,” she suggested a prayer rally to help with morale. Harrison invited her to dinner, and her idea was implemented as a “Unity Rally.”
That interpersonal relationship got Moore to commit so much time to Harrison’s Senate campaign. It’s also what’s made his campaign different from Graham’s—who had no supporters at the debate site. Harrison would prefer in the future to keep the grassroots organizing and ditch the millions of dollars. After his final debate against Graham on the Friday before Election Day, Harrison said, “I hope going forward this will be the last race like this. If I’m in the United States Senate, going forward campaign finance reform is going to be the top of the agenda.”
If Harrison wins on Tuesday, it will be the first time any state is represented by two Black senators. Harrison would join Republican Tim Scott, who spoke at the Republican Convention this summer. Harrison would also be taking up a position held by some of the most infamous segregationists in U.S. history, including the late Strom Thurmond, who held the seat until 2003. Graham replaced Thurmond, running as a moderate Republican. After becoming Sen. John McCain’s maverick sidekick, he veered far to the right as a Trump loyalist.
Thurmond was one of the country’s most notorious Dixiecrats, who once ran for president on a states’ rights and pro-segregation platform and filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 (the longest filibuster by a lone senator, lasting just over 24 hours). Thurmond switched parties to the Republicans in 1965.
“It’s even more than Strom Thurmond,” says Clyburn, a former history teacher. “It goes back to the beginning. The seat was also held by Ben Tillman and John C. Calhoun, so there’s much more.”
Harrison is also up against the state’s history of voter suppression and its current voting procedures, which can be an obstacle for voters and disproportionately voters of color. South Carolina ranks as the seventh-most difficult state to vote in, according to a recent Voter Cost Index. It has a strict voter ID law, limited absentee voting, as well as voter and witness signature requirements on ballots returned by mail.
Graham has a slight lead in the most recent FiveThirtyEight forecast. In a race this competitive, every vote will be crucial, and the state Democratic Party is prepared to wage a legal fight for every ballot for the first time. Thanks to a donation last year from Stacey Abrams’s Fair Fight Action, party chairman Trav Robertson Jr. says, his side will be ready to dispatch attorneys to courts across the state if issues arise on Election Day. The state party will be in touch with the voter protection hotlines set up, as well.
Clyburn likens the symbolism of Harrison’s campaign to the city of Charleston’s decision to remove its statue of Calhoun. The city council and mayor voted on removal this summer, angering some and pleasing others. Protesters had targeted the statue and it was the will of the people, who moved Charleston forward from its past. A win for Harrison on Tuesday could mean the same thing.
“I think Jaime is already a winner irrespective of how this campaign turns out,” Clyburn says. “If he doesn’t win this election, I think he’s going to play on the national scene in a way that will make our party a much better party moving forward.”
