How can SC Democrats turn visits from potential 2028 hopefuls into 2026 success?
South Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Christale Spain and party Executive Director Jay Parmley just may be the most popular state party leaders in the country.
Their phones have been ringing as operatives working for Democratic elected officials across the country want to visit South Carolina.
It’s the residual effects of holding the First in the Nation Democratic presidential primary in 2024, a position the state party is looking to hold for the 2028 election.
So far this year, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Arizona U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, California Congressman Ro Khanna, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz all made visits to South Carolina sparking speculation they’re looking at 2028 White House runs.
As potential presidential candidates visit the Palmetto State to make connections with South Carolina Democrats, the state party is looking to benefit in the next election.
“For us, we’re looking at all of this from how does this help us in 2026 find better candidates, organize better, put our candidates in better positions? And that’s really important,” Parmley said. “That’s how we use this early primary, this first in the nation opportunity to its fullest.”
The visits are an opportunity for the Democratic Party in South Carolina to energize its voters going into the 2026 midterm elections. That energy may already be there after the party exceeded expected vote margins when it held onto a state House seat in a special election.
“You gotta do over and over again what you did a few weeks ago when you held a seat that nobody thought could be held,” U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Santee, told a crowd in Camden before Newsom spoke. “We cannot just focus on the president. We got to build a foundation. So, as we go around welcoming these candidates who are running for president: Let’s not forget about school board, let’s not forget about (the) city and town council because no presidential candidate has ever been to your school board meeting. But what you got to remember is the other side is working from the bottom up.”
A lack of enthusiasm in 2024
Democrats across the country in 2024 seemed to face an enthusiasm problem, or at the very least a turnout problem. In South Carolina that helped lead to a 34-12 Republican supermajority in the state Senate. Republicans maintained their 88-36 majority in the House.
In state House districts, which will all be up in 2026, an average 14,700 votes were cast where Democrats won. In House districts won by Republicans, an average of 18,675 votes were cast, according to data from the S.C. Election Commission.
But if the recent visits by potential presidential candidates in packed rooms are any indication, at least the Democratic activists are ready for another cycle.
“It’s exciting because it infuses energy in our party,” Spain said in an interview. “Just the resources that we need right now in this moment. If we didn’t have them, we’d probably be having a hard time.”
Going into 2026, when winning any office statewide is a long shot, the party could look at other metrics to gauge success.
“Can we flip State House seats? Can we outperform, can we grow our electorate at every step of the way? And that’s really important and really doable, and if we grow correctly, we might just well surprise a few folks,” Parmley said.
The 2026 elections may be productive for Democrats. The party not holding the White House traditionally does better in the midterm elections. President Donald Trump, who won South Carolina by 18 points in the 2024 election, won’t be on the ballot, and Democrats may be energized to push back against Trump policies. In the 2018 election, the State House remained at an 80 to 44 Republican majority. In the 2022 midterms, with Democrats controlling the White House, the Democratic Party lost seats in the state House.
Going into 2026, the message is key to get voters to show up. Democrats have been losing seats in recent elections, and the last time a Democrat was elected statewide was in 2006.
“So the message is, after damn near 30 years of complete Republican rule, you want something to change. Here’s a better way. Here’s an option and a viable option,” Parmley said. “It’s not just, ’Oh, give us a chance.’ It’s like, you really care about public education. Vote for Democrats. You really care about what’s going on in small communities in rural South Carolina Democrats.”
The visits also have some practical benefits for the party. Each high-profile visitor comes with staffers who are also connecting with people in South Carolina.
“Those staff are hard core politicos. They’ve run campaigns. They’ve won campaigns. They know how to do their job well. Well, guess what? That’s information that transfers to someone running for governor, U.S. Senate, Congress or state House,” Parmley said. “They have a chance to connect with these experienced staff consultants or staff people who then can sort of help them. It takes our knowledge base up dramatically, and that is something you don’t see, but we feel the effects of in the very short term.”
During visits, the potential 2028 candidates have each made their case on how to improve the party’s chances in the future.
Walz at the SC Democratic Party Convention spoke about the need for the party to reconnect itself with working class voters. Moore spoke about the party needing having urgency.
“Gone are the days of Democrats being the party of ‘no’ and slow. We must be the party of ‘yes’ and now,” Moore said in May while speaking at the Blue Palmetto Dinner.
Beshear, who is a Democrat elected in a red state Trump won by more than 30 points in 2024, gave South Carolina Democrats some thoughts on how to be successful.
It includes talking like regular people and telling people why they care about certain issues and why it’s important to them.
“We’ve got ... to get back to talking like real human beings,” Beshear said in Columbia in what sounded like a well-crafted stump speech. “It’s a little bit of the advocacy speak and it was meant for the right reasons, it was meant to decrease stigma, but we don’t decrease stigma by changing words, we decrease stigma by changing hearts and when we start changing and sanitizing our language, things have less meaning.”
How to get Democrats to show up?
The party faithful also have their thoughts on how to improve outcomes.
Rocky Simmons, of Orangeburg County, is director of corporate, foundation and community relations at S.C. State University, and works with the local Democratic Party in his off time.
He said the party needs direct outreach to young people, such as on college campuses.
“They’re not as sometimes as involved within the daily landscape, so sometimes they may just look at the media and take out maybe what the news says, instead of actually doing their own research behind it,” Simmons said during an interview at the party’s Blue Palmetto Dinner in May.
That outreach needs to start before 2026 rolls around, Simmons said.
“We need to be engaging them now, speaking to them now, having those conversations now, and getting them energized and excited about their future and also to where the party is going,” Simmons said.
Margaret Sumpter, the second vice chair of the Richland County Democratic Party and the chair of the Council of Black Democrats, says go to rural areas.
“We need to get out there and canvas, knock on doors, make phone calls and get into the rural communities and talk to the African American folks, for some reason they’re not voting,” Sumpter said. “So we need to get them out to vote.”
Sumpter said the Democratic Party needs to continue to hammer the message about potential cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits to show voters the party cares about working class people.
“We work hard for the people and so folks just need to see what we’re doing,” Sumpter said. “In order to see what we’re doing, we got to go out in the community. I always say we have to go where the people are. They’re not coming to us, so we got to go to them.”
Charles Prescott, of Columbia, is a Democratic voter but not currently active in the party, and wants the party to throw punches such as calling for an investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for accepting lavish gifts.
“The reality is the left does not know how to fight. They know how to complain, but they don’t know how to fight. And that those are different skills,” Prescott said.
He even points to the situation revolving around suspended state Rep. RJ May, R-Lexington, and how the Democratic Party should be sending out mailers about the allegations surrounding him.
“Why is no one tarring and feathering everyone associated with these people publicly for associating with them?” Prescott said.
Elizabeth Kelsey, who is a nurse who lives in Lexington County, who describes herself as a progressive, said the party needs to focus on working class people.
“There was a fundamental shift in this country that the DNC did not see, and the RNC did, was talking to the working class. Bernie Sanders was the only candidate doing that, and they ignored him and railroaded him,” Kelsey said. “This state is working class.”
Jim Felder, who in 1970 was among the first Black officials elected to the state House since Reconstruction, said the outreach is not just knocking on doors. It has to be where people gather.
“You go to the American Legion Post, you go to the VFW Post, you go to where Black folk hang out,” Felder said. “You go to the apartment complexes. You develop a relationship with that apartment manager. That is the hardest group to get to the polls, people who live in apartments, apartment dwellers, they move around a lot.”
This story was originally published July 31, 2025 at 9:52 AM.
