Lindsey Graham-aligned PAC reserves $1.6 million in SC airtime weeks before Election Day
A super PAC supporting U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has reserved $1.6 million in air time in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
Security is Strength PAC’s ad buy throughout South Carolina media markets for October and November comes as Graham, the Republican incumbent, is facing his first competitive Democratic challenger, Jaime Harrison.
In a statement provided to The State on Wednesday, the Hilton Head Island-based PAC characterized the purchase as both standard practice and commonsense.
“Because independent expenditure groups do not benefit from lower advertising rates like candidate committees, buying early when prices are lower has become common practice among independent expenditure groups,” the statement reads. “SISPAC’s actions today will allow it to deliver impactful messages to South Carolina voters while maximizing the value of each dollar spent.”
Though polls show Graham is still favored to win in the reliably Republican state, the massive ad buy signals that Graham’s team is taking Harrison’s challenge seriously.
Harrison, a former state party chairman who also holds a leadership role with the Democratic National Committee, is posting record fundraising numbers — even raising more money than Graham in the year’s first fundraising quarter.
And on Tuesday, Harrison’s campaign announced it had wooed away one of Graham’s longtime supporters and donors, Richard Wilkerson, the retired chairman and president of Michelin’s North American operations headquartered in Greenville.
“Lindsey Graham is running scared, because after 25 years in Washington, South Carolinians realize that he’s changed and is putting political games ahead of them,” said Harrison’s spokesman, Guy King, in a statement Wednesday. “He now needs a Super PAC to save him.”
SISPAC, which was created to boost Graham’s short-lived 2016 presidential campaign, had $917,226 available in cash on hand at the end of the most recent reporting period on March 31, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
Earlier this year, it spent $754,989 to air television ads maligning Harrison — who also spent years as a lobbyist for the now-defunct Podesta Group — as a creature of the Washington, D.C. “swamp.”
This fall, voters in the Greenville-Spartanburg area will see the most pro-Graham airtime, according to a breakdown of SISPAC’s most recent reservations across South Carolina’s major media markets obtained by The State. The PAC has spent at least $570,485 on television advertising there.
The group purchased at least $225,920 for Columbia, $212,050 for Myrtle Beach-Florence and $193,155 in Charleston.
