SC Megathread 2020: Graham Crackers, Cunning-Ham Sandwiches and Duncan Donuts

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

The other Libertarian candidate had dropped out previously and this one did not make it onto the ballot. He is presumably running as an independent, but there are no barriers to write-in candidates in SC (one doesn't even have to file to win) so the impact of another write-in candidate in a pool with no barriers to entry isn't going to make much of a difference: https://twitter.com/KDunham4Peace/status/1295032330101428229

A low-profile independent candidate has also withdrawn from the race. With the third party ballot access deadline having expired and scvotes.gov regularly updated, the ballot is now set as a Democratic-Republican-Constitution race (plus write-in candidates).

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1303850204144308224

I hope this blows up. Honestly, Carlson trying to create Trump-Harrison voters might be the best thing to happen to Senate Democrats since Bullock entered the MT race.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

RIP Harrison's chances, I liked him

Lindsey looking like a flip flop is going to have a more profound impact than there being a SC vacancy alone

Anyone who cares about Graham's flip-flopping is already voting for Harrison.

I don't think this is true. There are a lot of smarmy "swing voters" who consider themselves above petty partisan bickering who may vote en masse for Harrison now.

No. That was already happening because of Graham's high-profile pivots on Trump. If anything, Graham supporting Trump in a "controversial" way will help him with his base problem.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Harrison is in the best position in god knows how long to win this seat. I really think he may be able to pull it off.

https://twitter.com/ElizLanders/status/1307817365845966848

At least this new batch of candidates aren't wasting their resources going after rural, ancestral Democrats like McCaskill and Donnelly did two years ago. They know where their new base is.

Donnelly relied too much on rural areas, but there's some evidence a degree mean reversion might happen in this election and in states as red as those, reducing margins in these places is critical. For reference: how Medicaid expansion passed in MO and Nicole Galloway's 2018 win.

Harrison's primary targets should be in the 'burbs as the Democrats have a lower ceiling and southern rural Republican voters are usually much harder to win over, but he should certainly be hoping the Constitution candidate overperforms/that there is downballot abandonment of Graham in these areas (it might well pay off to play the flip-flop accusations there) and could do with working for a slight overperformance in these places. It's not as if his campaign is strapped for cash.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Anyone who was voting Constitution Party probably won't vote for Graham even with their candidate out. Most support for that part is based on dislike for Graham more than anything else and there has always been a contingent in the state that doesn't like him. These people aren't always that strategic in their voting.

Is there a libertarian party on the ballot?

No Libertarian on the ballot.

But there is a Libertarian running a write-in campaign.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

If he doesn’t appear on the ballot, best news for Senate Republicans since the Montana Libertarians chose not to select a candidate for Senate and Marshall beat Kobach in KS.

I think it's too late to change the ballot though, so this may not be *that* good of news for Graham if Constitution remains on ballot

Surely it's better to get the candidate to drop out after the period in which the party can nominate a replacement. I'm not sure of the specifics in SC's case, but often the deadline for nominating a replacement and the deadline for having one's name removed from the ballot are the same.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Graham got murdered at this debate lol
I have not seen a beat down like that in a very long time

No it wasn't. I watched the whole debate and thought it was a draw. Harrison should have painted Graham as a sell out to big corporates, a warmonger or SC being one of the worsts states for education and other indexes. Meanwhile Graham turned his influence in Washington a to a positive. I predict Graham by 2-4 points

South Carolina isn't the best place to run a Bernie Sanders-like campaign.

In any case, Harrison did speak for a fair bit on Medicaid expansion.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Very glad to see my "stop donating to meme candidates who don't have a chance in hell" speech aged poorly here.

He’s run a great campaign, but $57m is still way too much. That would be better spent on GA, TX and further downballot races. If state legislative candidates got these kinds of fundraising boosts, control of chambers could flip as a result and this could often provide better pathways to certain progressive changes than narrow control of a compromised federal government.