‘He is nervous and he should be,’ Jaime Harrison says of Lindsey Graham at SC rally
In front of spaced apart cars and using the marsh and setting sun as a backdrop, Democratic Senate Candidate Jaime Harrison urged his supporters to vote and encourage others to do so.
Harrison is challenging Republican incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham in the Nov. 3 election. The COVID-19 safe drive-in rally on Saturday in North Charleston was Harrison’s first in-person campaign event since Aug. 28 when he unveiled a rural agenda in a soybean field in Rowesville.
“So our motto for the next few weeks until Nov. 3 is ‘While I breathe I vote’ because that is how we bring hope to South Carolina,” Harrison said, a play off of the state motto, “Dum spiro spero” which means, “While I breathe I hope.”
Harrison has kept to a mostly virtual campaign because of the ongoing pandemic. Some of his public appearances include a debate at Allen University with Graham and a candidate forum in Spartanburg, originally planned as a debate.
On Saturday, attendees parked their vehicles about 15 feet apart, each space marked with a Jaime Harrison yard sign. Harrison spoke on stage surrounded by barricades while attendees stayed in their cars. And instead of cheering, they honked their horns.
The rally was held at The Bend, an event venue on the Ashley River not far from several Charleston-area neighborhoods. The populous Lowcountry will play a key role in boosting the Democrat’s vote count.
Among those to attend were Samuel and Una Barron, both 62, of Summerville. They are supporting Harrison in the campaign, saying Graham hasn’t helped the Black community and has been in Washington, D.C., too long.
“Lindsey Graham has been up there forever and he just hasn’t done anything as far as I am concerned for us,” Samuel Barron said.
Harrison held the drive-in rally after a week of polls showing he was down six percentage points to Graham, who spent the week leading the Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings.
Despite the recent poll numbers, Harrison displayed confidence he would defeat Graham.
“He is scared,” Harrison said. “He is nervous. And he should be. Because the people of South Carolina are about to give him a one way ticket back home to Seneca or Mar-a-Lago or wherever he wants to go.” Harrison was referring to Graham’s rural hometown in Upstate South Carolina and President Donald Trump’s Florida resort which has been nicknamed the Winter White House because of the amount of time the president has spent there while in office.
Graham’s campaign has been hitting Harrison for not taking a stance publicly on whether he would vote to confirm Barrett if he were in the Senate.
Appointing conservative judges is a key talking point for Republicans, and 54% of voters in the reliably red state have said they believe the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat should be filled before the election.
Harrison still didn’t commit either way Saturday.
“There are still some outstanding questions I have of Ms. Barrett,” Harrison said. “But this is the thing. Lindsey Graham isn’t in a position to demand anything. This is a man who said use my words against me. Hold the tape…., he should not have been conducting a hearing this week, because of his own words because of the precedent that was set.”
He added he wants to hear more for Barrett on where she stands on civil rights issues important to communities across the country.
“She declared that she thought that the Brown vs. Board was a super precedent but there are other civil rights that have been gained as well,” Harrison said. “Where is she on the Voting Rights Act ... that (is) very important particularly to communities here in South Carolina?”
This story was originally published October 17, 2020 at 7:34 PM with the headline "‘He is nervous and he should be,’ Jaime Harrison says of Lindsey Graham at SC rally."
