Can Jaime Harrison go from formidable U.S. Senate candidate to sitting SC senator?
Jaime Harrison has already surmounted one obstacle to representing our state in Washington: the Orangeburg Democrat is without question the strongest opponent Sen. Lindsey Graham has faced since the Republican was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002.
And there are some obvious reasons why Harrison has achieved that status:
▪ Though merely 44 years old, Harrison is an established name in state politics: from 2013 to 2017, he served as chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party and made history as the first African American to hold that role.
▪ Harrison falls comfortably within the moderate and pragmatic wing of the Democratic Party.
For example, Harrison has called for expanding and improving access to health care without rashly overhauling it.
He has advocated for meaningful police and criminal justice reform, yet resisted the current shortsighted call to radically and reflexively “defund” law enforcement agencies.
And Harrison has vowed to work across the aisle to improve the nation’s infrastructure and reduce an appalling technology gap that has left hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians with little or poor internet access.
“Am I a Democrat? Yes, I’m a Democrat,” Harrison said during a recent interview with The State Editorial Board.
“But at the end of the day,” Harrison added, “when I take the oath as a senator it won’t be to do the bidding of the Democratic Party or a president in the White House. I will be there to fight for the people of South Carolina.”
That’s the right tone to strike in a state full of centrist-minded voters who want their politicians to focus on finding realistic solutions, and not on advancing ideological agendas.
▪ Harrison has shown an eye-popping ability to raise campaign funds at a competitive pace with Graham; indeed Harrison has recruited several of Graham’s former donors and the Democrat was tied with Graham in a recent online poll of South Carolina voters.
▪ While Harrison has criticized Graham’s Senate performance with gusto — Harrison told The State Editorial Board that Graham has morphed from an independent-minded lawmaker into an inauthentic “flip-flopper who is more interested in playing Washington political games” — the Democrat hasn’t crossed the line that separates a properly robust campaign from a relentlessly negative one.
In short Harrison is a Senate candidate of genuine depth and substance — one who has soared above the bar of credibility with ease.
Leap of faith
But between now and Election Day in November, there’s an even more daunting bar that Harrison must clear: convincing South Carolinians to take the leap of faith necessary to remove Graham — a longtime incumbent with substantial influence in the U.S. Senate — and replace him with a relatively young hopeful who, while promising, has never held elected office.
In truth, that’s what the election between Harrison and Graham will ultimately turn on — even more than the considerable policy differences that may separate them. And it’s that test that will determine whether Harrison can make the transformation from formidable Senate candidate to sitting U.S. senator.
This story was originally published June 12, 2020 at 10:43 AM.