Jaime Harrison Raises $57 Million as Democratic Cash Floods Senate Races
Mr. Graham caused another stir at a candidate forum on Friday when he declared that Black people “can go anywhere in this state” as long as they are “conservative, not liberal.” Critics quickly called out Mr. Graham, who is white, for what they described as an attempt to dictate an acceptable path for Black political leaders while debating Mr. Harrison, who is Black, in a state with a long and troubled racial history.
Mr. Harrison will have the money to amplify that or any other past Graham comments. On a drive Mr. Loftis made last week from Columbia to Charleston, the Harrison campaign “owned every billboard from here to there,” he said. But given the state’s conservative bent, he added, “I’m not sure money can take Jaime over the top.”
Still, the fact that the race is competitive at all speaks to the intense energy among Democrats, and to how Republican worries about a challenging year have turned into fears of a national landslide. South Carolina, which voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 by more than 14 points, has not elected any Democrat statewide since 2006 and has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1998, when Ernest F. Hollings was re-elected.
Mr. Harrison’s huge fund-raising total also speaks to Democratic voters’ specific anger at Mr. Graham, who has become one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal defenders and, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is leading the charge to confirm Judge Barrett.
Mr. Harrison has been campaigning heavily across the state, including in “deep Republican areas that Democrats usually write off,” said Tameika Isaac Devine, a Democrat who serves on the Columbia City Council.
And, flush with cash, Mr. Harrison has been able to blanket the state with advertising.
“You cannot turn on your TV and not see Jaime, you cannot go on the internet and not see Jaime, you cannot open your mailbox and not see Jaime,” said State Senator Dick A. Harpootlian, a Democrat who represents the Columbia area.
Mr. Harpootlian, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said he voted for Mr. Graham six years ago because the senator was then a bipartisan moderate.
