RATINGS CHANGE: Cook Political Report Moves South Carolina Senate Race to Toss-Up

South Carolina Is “Truly In Play”, the Latest Sign of “How Fast the GOP Majority Is Slipping Away”

Jessica Taylor of Cook Political Report shifted the South Carolina Senate race rating from Lean Republican to Toss-Up today, in the latest sign that Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison’s strong campaign has put Senator Lindsey Graham at real risk of losing his seat. Public and private polling has shown that the race is a dead heat for months, and Senator Graham “still has weaknesses among the GOP base.” Meanwhile, Harrison’s formidable campaign – including his “behemoth” grassroots fundraising – has put this race “truly in play.”

Republicans are expressing concerns about Senator Graham’s struggling operation and have already started the blame-game. Many Republicans “have privately voiced frustrations that Graham’s campaign didn’t take the challenge from Harrison…seriously enough from the get-go.” Even Senator Graham is “hardly hiding his worry” as he begs for money on Fox News. Mitch McConnell’s super PAC has been forced to pour $10 million into bailing out the increasingly vulnerable incumbent in a state they’d previously taken for granted. And after this weekend’s debate, Republicans concede that “it was Harrison, not Graham, who came out looking stronger from that showdown.”

The nonpartisan election analysts at Cook Political Report conclude that “this race has earned a more competitive rating — underscoring just how fast the GOP majority is slipping away if they have to defend turf like this.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Cook Political Report: South Carolina Senate Moves To Toss Up
By Jessica Taylor
October 7, 2020

Key Points:

• There has been no more surprising race on the Senate map than South Carolina. Even early this year, it looked like Sen. Lindsey Graham would cruise to re-election. Instead, the Republican incumbent finds himself in a tied race in both public and private surveys with challenger Jaime Harrison, who has proven to be perhaps Democrats’ best recruit and a fundraising behemoth. 

• “It’s a jump ball at this point,” said one South Carolina Republican strategist. “Jaime is peaking at exactly the right time and he’s got a deluge of money. [Harrison] is blocking every pass there is from Republicans.” 

• Many Republicans have privately voiced frustrations that Graham’s campaign didn’t take the challenge from Harrison — a charismatic 44-year-old African-American former state party chairman who tells a compelling story of growing up with a teen mother and being raised by his grandparents in impoverished Orangeburg — seriously enough from the get-go.

• Harrison first went up on TV back in April with positive bio spots, and hasn’t gone dark since. That allowed Harrison to set the tenor of the race. And since then, he’s had a series of ads that are very clearly aimed at who they hope will be Graham’s Achilles Heel — white women. In several spots, middle age or senior women talk about how they were once longtime Graham voters but now see that he’s changed on health care and how Harrsion’s “values” now more closely reflect their values. Harrison has made this race about character and in other Democratic ads they turn the tables and paint Graham as part of the “swamp,” and that seems to be working. 

• Harrison started out the year by posting impressive fundraising totals each quarter — $7.37 million and $14 million respectively — and outraising Graham each quarter too. Democrats expect a historic third-quarter fundraising haul from Harrison too, who’s been raising money at a fast clip ($10.6 million in August alone) even before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death last month where ActBlue donations poured into campaigns across the board. 

• Graham’s hardly hiding his worry either. Just before the close of the third quarter fundraising books, he repeatedly appeared on Fox News shows to plead for cash, repeating his website and complaining he was being swamped by out of state money by liberals who hate him. It’s true — Graham has put himself in far more of a national lightning rod role than he ever was when he was the late Sen. John McCain’s sidekick. Now he’s far more closely aligned with Trump and the national GOP than he ever was, and the money is coming for him for sure. 

• Now, the Senate Leadership Fund has come in to help bail Graham out to the tune of $10 million so far spent or reserved through Election Day. (The fact that they’re also spending in Kansas, another usually ruby-red state at the federal level, shows how truly in danger the GOP’s Senate majority is).

• At the candidates’ first debate this past Saturday, Graham repeatedly hammered home his sway on the court and judicial nominees, turning nearly every question back to Barrett or his support for Trump’s appointees. Harrison, in turn, evoked the coronavirus crisis and how badly it’s hit South Carolina — punctuated by a plexiglass shield he brought with him to the debate to separate himself from Graham. While the senator tested negative for COVID after being exposed to other senators who tested positive, there would still be a 14 day quarantine per CDC guidelines. In that regard, the chasm between them on the pandemic wasn’t just metaphorical, and Graham could face some blowback for pushing ahead with the hearings on such a rushed timeline even as two committee members have tested positive for the virus. Even some Republicans privately concede it was Harrison, not Graham, who came out looking stronger from that showdown.

• The crosstabs in public polling — and what mirrors some private polling — show that Graham still has weaknesses among the GOP base.

• Ultimately, this race has earned a more competitive rating — underscoring just how fast the GOP majority is slipping away if they have to defend turf like this, and also how much Trump’s numbers have fallen across the board. We are moving South Carolina from Lean Republican to Toss Up. 

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