How Jaime Harrison thinks he can knock off Lindsey Graham

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Jaime Harrison doesn’t want to talk about Donald Trump. In fact, he doesn’t even think he needs to.

In his bid to oust Sen. Lindsey Graham, Harrison has raked in tens of millions of dollars from Democrats across the country who despise the president and, by extension, one of his top allies, Graham.

But as the president remains popular in South Carolina, the Democratic Senate hopeful has not gone after Trump directly, strategically avoiding the ideological battle lines that could drive voters here to Graham. It’s a gambit that has helped put Harrison within striking distance of a historic upset — and one that could provide a blueprint for Democrats trying to win in the South.

“Listen, I’m a Democrat. I understand that,” Harrison said in an interview as the sun set behind him over the Ashley River, an apparent acknowledgment of the headwinds his campaign has always faced. “But at the end of the day I’m a South Carolinian and I’m an American first.”

Harrison has run perhaps the most disciplined campaign this cycle, a systematic offensive against a top ally of a president who is almost certain to win South Carolina’s nine electoral votes.

But he’s not going scorched-earth against Trump; it won’t work here, and Harrison knows it.

“President Trump and Joe Biden aren’t really campaigning here in South Carolina,” Harrison said. “The headline ticket is Lindsey Graham and Jaime Harrison, and there is a definite contrast because Jaime Harrison and Lindsey Graham. And I believe that is what’s going to drive people to the polls.”

Instead, Harrison is seizing on Graham’s conversion from Trump antagonist four years ago to portray the state’s senior senator as an unprincipled politician who has lost touch with South Carolinians.

“Lindsey thinks that he is the powerful one. But Lindsey is not powerful. Lindsey is like the moon. All he does is reflect the light of the sun,” Harrison told rallygoers at a park in North Charleston on Saturday.

It's unclear how far Harrison's strategy can carry him in South Carolina. The state is among the most conservative in the country, and there’s only so much Harrison can do to insulate himself from Trump’s popularity. Republicans are growing increasingly confident that Graham will fend off Harrison and the tens of millions of dollars he has raised, especially as they make the case that Harrison will be a rubber stamp for the national Democratic platform.

“State Democrats can only run these issue-free campaigns for so long,” said Matt Moore, the former state GOP chairman who struck up a much-publicized friendship with Harrison, his Democratic counterpart four years ago. “At some point they’ll have to break with the national Democrats, who are too extreme for South Carolina voters.”

Still, Democrats from all around the country channeled their anger toward Trump and Graham by donating a record-smashing $57 million to Harrison’s campaign in the third quarter of 2020. Harrison and several other Democratic Senate challengers have consistently outraised GOP incumbents as Trump continues to lag behind Biden in most national and swing-state polls.

But Harrison thinks it’s much more than simply anger at Trump that’s propelling his campaign. He pointed out that South Carolina’s rural hospitals are closing, its infrastructure is crumbling, and lead contamination is all too common — and said Graham has done nothing to help.

“I know Sen. Graham says it’s because people hate his guts,” Harrison said, growing animated as he expressed appreciation for his donors. “No, it’s because people are tired of the politics of division. They’re tired of having folks who claim to be representing the people, but they lie to the people.”

Life in America has changed dramatically since Harrison launched his long-shot bid 17 months. For one, Harrison has amassed a record-breaking war chest and has overcome double-digit polling deficits to put himself on the cusp of taking out one of the country’s most prominent senators.

But as Harrison’s fortunes have rebounded and the world around him has changed, his message and strategy for winning in a deep-red state with a “D” next to his name have remained consistent.

From the first day of his campaign, Harrison portrayed Graham as an entrenched politician who has sacrificed the state’s needs in his quest to remain in power. Harrison insists he won’t always go along with what the Democratic Party wants.

Republicans have grown frustrated with the amount of national attention on Graham’s race, insisting that it doesn’t reflect the makeup of the state’s electorate.

“It’s purely a function of money and his ability to buy name recognition early on. But as the campaign has worn on, as his television campaign has worn on, he has shown no connection to the voters in terms of the issues that are relevant and matter the most,” South Carolina GOP Chairman Drew McKissick said, adding that Harrison has the Democratic agenda “essentially hanging around him.”

Graham has centered his closing message on his role in shepherding Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination through the Senate. As Judiciary Committee chairman, Graham is the face of Senate Republicans’ drive to confirm Barrett to the high court, and it has helped him shore up support among conservative voters, many of whom have long distrusted him over his moderate tendencies.

“I think there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that [Harrison] would ever vote for Amy Barrett,” Graham said in an interview. “What do you think would happen to all his money if he said, ‘Amy Barrett’s my kind of judge?'”

Harrison wouldn't say whether he would vote to confirm Barrett, noting he didn't have an opportunity to meet her as sitting senators do. Instead, he hammered Graham for reversing his position on confirming a nominee in an election year.

Harrison's strategy of avoiding wedge issues that would drive conservatives toward Graham carries some risk. Graham consistently hammers him as an automatic "yes" vote for Democrats’ agenda in Washington, citing Harrison’s opposition to the nominations of Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court as examples.

“To all the folks in California thinking you’re going to sell your agenda here, you’re going to fall short,” Graham told reporters after rallying with supporters in North Charleston last week. “They see in my opponent a reliable ally for their agenda. He is not a middle-of-the-road person.”

But Harrison, a 44-year-old associate chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has stuck to his plan — and it’s working out better than he could have expected, in part because of the national attention on the race.

“His campaign has become such a national cause, because this hypocrisy is not limited to South Carolina borders,” House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) said in an interview before rallying with Harrison on Saturday. “People saw it, and they saw in him the authenticity.”

Instead of going after Trump for his policies or personal transgressions — likely turning off a majority of voters here — Harrison zeroes in on the evolution of Graham’s relationship with Trump, one he sees as hypocritical and self-serving.

Graham maintains that his support for Trump is genuine because he was willing to put aside their differences from the 2016 presidential campaign for the good of South Carolinians.

Harrison doesn’t buy it.

“That’s a nice thing to have a relationship with the president. ... But get something out of it as a result!” Harrison exclaimed, noting that Graham supported Trump’s effort to build a border wall that included taking $11 million in funding designated for a military installation in Beaufort, about an hour and a half south of here.

The money will not be returned to the state, despite assurances to the contrary. Harrison often cites the raided funds to buttress his argument that Graham defers to Trump, even when it hurts South Carolina.

“When Sens. [Fritz] Hollings and Strom Thurmond were around, do you think they would’ve ever allowed any president … to take money from a military base in South Carolina to use for an administration project?” Harrison said. “No. Not only no — hell no. ... But Sen. Graham is as quiet as a church mouse.”

Notably, Harrison didn't cite the specific “administration project,” perhaps because of the support for Trump’s border wall in the state.

Policy views aside, a Harrison victory would be historic.

There have only been 10 Black senators in U.S. history. If Harrison is elected, he would join Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the chamber, making South Carolina the first state to have two African American senators serving at the same time.

“This was the seat of Ben ‘Pitchfork’ Tillman, who would go to the floor of the U.S. Senate and talk about the joys of lynching black folks,” Harrison said. “But on Nov. 3, the people of South Carolina are going to close the book on the old South and write a brand new book called the new South.”

Indeed, Harrison would cut a unique profile in the Senate. Born to a 16-year-old mother, he grew up in a mobile home in Orangeburg, S.C., received a scholarship to Yale for his undergraduate studies, then went to Georgetown Law. He served as the executive director for the House Democratic Caucus when Clyburn was chairman and later ran Clyburn’s House floor operations. He also worked as a lobbyist and state Democratic Party chair, and ran for chairman of the Democratic National Committee but withdrew before a vote.

Scott, who was appointed to the state’s other seat by then-Gov. Nikki Haley in 2013 and elected in his own right in 2014 and 2016, declined to comment on the possibility of two Black senators representing South Carolina in the Senate. The friend and ally of Graham's would only say this: “Lindsey’s gonna win.”