With Graham favored to win, how Harrison is angling for an upset in the SC Senate race
Democrat Jaime Harrison has raised more than $108 million through mid-October in his effort to unseat Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham — but to pull off the upset, he’s going to need a lot more than record-breaking cash on his side.
Though Graham remains the favorite to win, polls in the Pametto State Senate race are far from decisive, leading one election forecaster to call it a toss up.
Democrats hope close polls and record fundraising give Harrison a boost to become the first Democrat to win a statewide seat in South Carolina since 2006.
However, Harrison faces a tough climb in a conservative state with a history of favoring Republicans statewide by wide margins, which could propel Graham to a fourth term.
So what would it take for Harrison to pull off what would be a huge upset in a race that has gained national attention and donors from around the country?
Historic turnout among Black voters, dissatisfaction with Trump and Graham and a wild card — a third-party candidate pitched as more conservative than Graham who dropped out of the race — could collide in Harrison’s benefit, political observers say.
The race also will come down to who can shore up support in counties where Harrison has an advantage and trying to cut into Graham’s support in reliably Republican counties.
The 3rd party factor
Though they’re the only two candidates still running, Graham and Harrison aren’t alone on the ballot. Appearing alongside their names is Constitution Party nominee Bill Bledsoe, who dropped out of the race and endorsed Graham.
Third party candidates usually pick up a small percentage of the vote, and Bledsoe may be no exception. The New York Times poll found that Bledsoe had support from 4% of those surveyed.
And in 2016, when Bledsoe was the Libertarian and Constitution parties’ Senate candidate, Bledsoe garnered 1.8% of the vote in the race that U.S. Sen. Tim Scott ultimately won with ease. Though that 1.8% is just a small amount of support, if Bledsoe can replicate or even top that performance, he could tip the scales toward Harrison, if polls favoring Harrison, or showing the race within a couple of points, hold true.
Recent polls have shown a close race between Harrison and Graham. Some show the race tied or one or two points apart. However, a poll conducted by New York Times/Siena College have Graham with a six-point lead — a much wider margin for Bledsoe to be a factor in closing for Harrison.
And a poll released by Morning Consult on Thursday gives Harrison a two-point edge.
Bledsoe draining votes from Graham is a scenario most likely in the conservative Upstate, said Miles Coleman, an associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Coleman said Graham has under-performed in the Upstate in previous elections.
In 2014, when Nikki Haley was re-elected governor, she had 67% of the vote in Greenville County, and 65% in Spartanburg County. Voters in those counties were not so fond of Graham, who received 60% in Greenville County, and 59% in Spartanburg County.
Statewide, Graham picked up 54% of the vote, while Haley received 56% in her race.
In this year’s GOP primary facing three challengers, Graham received 68% of the vote. But in Greenville and Spartanburg counties, Graham received 47% of the vote.
“That’s where I would expect to see some maybe protest votes against Graham from the right,” Coleman said. “So really, I’m going to go a bit further and say if Graham is under 60 (%) in both in both Greenville and Spartanburg, that could be problematic.”
Even though Bledsoe has dropped out of the race, Harrison’s campaign has been running ads naming the Constitution Party nominee, calling him too conservative and someone who has never wavered from President Donald Trump, among other things.
The ads could speak to Republicans in South Carolina who remember Graham when he was attacked in his own party for crossing the aisle to work with Democrats on issues some conservatives oppose such as immigration reform.
“I’m old enough to remember that third party candidates can have an influence in terms of elections,” Harrison told reporters at an event in North Charleston. “Bill Bledsoe is on the ballot and I want to make sure that everybody who votes in the state gets to understand who’s on the ballot and what their positions are.”
Harrison stopped short of saying he wants conservative voters to support Bledsoe.
“Voters are going who make a decision on who they’re going to vote for, that’s not that’s not up to me,” Harrison said.
Former state Rep. Bakari Sellers, a CNN contributor, even encouraged conservative voters on Twitter to learn about Bledsoe.
Graham called Harrison’s efforts to bring attention to Bledsoe unprecedented, and made an appeal to voters who may consider voting third party.
“When the constitutional conservative is supporting the Republican, it tells you a lot about the state of the race,” Graham told reporters in Simpsonville. “So to all my friends in the Constitutional Party movement: Mr Harrison will take this road down a constitutional path that changes the country. They’re going to pack the court, they’re going to do away with the Electoral College — on and on and on, so it tells you a lot about the race that the Democratic candidate is advertising for Mr. Bledsoe when Mr. Bledsoe is publicly supporting me.”
Trump polls higher than Graham
Another factor that could create an opening for Harrison is, at least according to polls, Graham is polling lower in South Carolina than the president.
But not all voters who aren’t picking Graham in the polls are in the bag for Harrison — many are undecided — and some could end up with the senator on Election Day.
Graham predicts he’ll have support that mirrors the president’s.
“I think we’re both gonna win, I think we’re gonna be very close to each other. My third party opponent is doing a little bit better than his,” Graham said, referring to Trump’s third-party challengers.
“I’ve never felt better about the team aspect of this race that I think people see that I’ve been helpful to the President. I am my own man, people see that. But at the end of the day I think President Trump and Senator Graham are gonna win the day in South Carolina rather decisively, quite frankly, but I take nothing for granted and what we have to do is turn out the vote.”
Graham and Harrison also could lose votes to nobody at all.
In 2016, 53,000 of the 2.1 million people who voted in the presidential election in the state left the U.S. Senate race blank. Scott easily won re-election defeating a Democratic state senator and garnering more votes than Trump.
Graham polling lower than Trump doesn’t worry a former Graham campaign manager who says voters will end up up supporting someone they previously voted for.
“The old rule of politics is soldiers go home right before the election,” said Dave Woodard, who ran Graham’s campaigns in the 1990s and is a retired Clemson University political science professor.
Black voters, white women keys to turnout
Having a marquee minority on the top of the ballot may also help.
When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, he lost South Carolina by nine points, less than the 11 points he lost by in 2012 and the 14 points Clinton lost by in 2016. Obama’s 2008 outcome was driven in part by Black voter turnout, which reached 76% in the state that year compared to 66% in 2004, and it’s something Harrison hopes to replicate.
Explosive growth in the state has added about 1 million voters to the registration rolls since 2008, and of the 3.5 million registered voters in the state now, more than a million are non-white.
Non-white registered voters make up roughly 30% of all registered voters in the state, about the same as in 2008. High turnout among minorities, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, could help Harrison close the gap.
California U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, who is Black and Indian American, also could help boost non-white turnout in the state as former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate.
The recent New York Times poll found 78% of Black voters, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, plan to support Harrison. Graham has support from 6% of Black voters.
Meanwhile, 12% of Black voters said they don’t know who they will vote for in the Senate race — showing Harrison has room to grow his support, Coleman said.
Darlington County, where 41% of the population is Black — higher than the state’s Black population of about 27% — may be a bellwether in how well Harrison does motivating Black voters to go to the polls. It was a county that voted for John McCain in 2008, but voted for Obama in 2012. It went for Trump in 2016, and McMaster won the the 2018 gubernatorial race.
“If Harrison can win Darlington County, that probably tells me in some of the more rural parts of the state he’s doing a good job of getting his Black vote out,” Coleman said.
Another group of people Harrison is trying to win over is white women, says Jessica Taylor, the Senate and Governors editor of the Cook Political Report.
White women were key for Democratic Congressman Joe Cunningham winning the 1st District in 2018, Taylor said.
Harrison has run ads featuring middle-age or older white women about how they previously supported Graham.
According to the New York Times poll, Graham leads among men, 50% to 39%. The senator’s lead among women is narrower at 44% to 41%.
Thursday’s Morning Consult poll found Graham leads among men at 54% to 37%. Harrison has a 46% to 42% lead among women.
Taylor said Harrison doesn’t necessarily need to win the women vote, as religious conservative women who are anti-abortion most likely won’t vote for Harrison. However, Harrison has to keep the women vote close.
“I think that they look at Trump, and they’re appalled by some of the things he does,” Taylor said. “They’re worried about health care, and just sort of the model that someone at the top sets for their kids. I think by linking Graham, who of course was once a critic of Trump’s approach and has now embraced it, those are people that Harrison is able to pick off.”
Ultimately, who can turnout more of their voters to the polls will be victorious. Both Graham and Harrison say voter turnout is important, but too much could backfire on Harrison, experts say.
Jordan Ragusa, a political science professor at the College of Charleston, said Harrison needs high voter turnout, but he may not want it to be too high in the reliably Republican state.
Ragusa estimated the right zone for a Harrison victory is around 75% voter turnout.
“If turnout goes so insanely high, like in the 80% range, well then this means that there’s a lot of Republicans and conservatives that are turning out to vote,” Ragusa said. “But by the same token, if turnout is really low, say it’s only like 60%, then I think that that indicates that there’s not sufficient enthusiasm in this race.”
The geographic area battle
Graham and Harrison will do well in different parts of the state, but each must also work to pick up voters in battleground counties.
And, according to one political observer, Harrison must clean house in areas where he already has an advantage while also winning in counties where the race is more competitive.
Harrison has a substantial advantage in the Columbia area, where he leads Graham 55% to 33%, according to the New York Times/Siena College poll.
And Graham has similar double-digit leads in the Piedmont region and in the Greenville-Spartanburg area.
The Lowcountry and coastal areas also are supporting Graham, 46% to 39%, in the Times poll.
The race is tightest in the Charleston metropolitan area and the 1st Congressional District, where Graham has a narrow lead of 45%-42%, the New York Times poll says.
Each party disagrees of where the Senate race stands in the 1st District, which includes, Beaufort, Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton and Dorchester counties.
A recently released Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee internal poll said Harrison leads Graham 52%-46% within the district. But an internal poll from Republican Nancy Mace’s congressional campaign shows Graham is leading in the 1st District by just 1 point.
Coleman, of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, said Harrison probably needs to take 60% of the vote in Charleston County, for him to be successful on election night.
It’s a county Democrat James Smith carried with 57% of the vote in the 2018 gubernatorial election, and Clinton received 51% of the vote in 2016’s presidential election. However Scott, South Carolina’s Republican junior senator and a former Charleston County councilman, won the county in 2016 with 56%.
In 2014, Graham and Democratic gubernatorial nominee state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, each won 49% of the vote in Charleston County.
If Harrison wins in a close race, it will be with a lead in the 1st Congressional District, Coleman said.
Harrison also would need to win 70% of the vote in Richland County, Coleman said.
For Graham to do well, he will need to take 70% of the vote in Horry County and probably 60% of the vote Lexington County, both reliably Republican counties, Coleman said.
If Harrison can hold Graham to less than 60% of the vote in Greenville and Spartanburg counties, and if Harrison stays within 10 points of Graham in York County, near Charlotte, that may be a good sign for the former state Democratic Party chairman, Coleman said.
This story was originally published October 23, 2020 at 12:16 PM with the headline "With Graham favored to win, how Harrison is angling for an upset in the SC Senate race."
