Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison said on Friday that his opponent has sold out the voters of his state in favor of the power players in Washington, D.C.
Harrison, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, has been running a competitive campaign against the Republican incumbent, laid out a list of issues voters in his state are worried about, including hospital closures and rural access to broadband.
“Those are the issues that people have been dealing with for a long time, and Lindsey doesn’t talk about it,” Harrison said on ABC’s The View. “He only worries about what is going on in Washington, D.C., and the folks want someone to focus on them.”
Graham, a close ally to President Trump who was first elected to the Senate in 2002, is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and, as such, is poised to oversee the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett this month. He is also leading a high-profile inquiry into the origins of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into links between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
Harrison added that he believes Graham’s dynamic with Trump, which turned from acrimonious during the 2016 primaries to warm over the course of the past four years, is due to his desire to stay popular among certain political circles.
“It’s about political opportunism,” Harrison said. “He’s only in it for himself … How can he be important? Well, for me, I measure relevancy not by how many TV hits I do with [Fox News host] Sean Hannity or how many times I golf with the president. I measure my relevancy by whether or not I’m helping the people in South Carolina.”
The latest Quinnipiac University Poll shows Graham and Harrison each with 48% of the vote, a major shift from when Graham comfortably led in polls last summer. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report also shifted the high-profile race as a “Toss Up” this week.
Harrison has been out-fundraising Graham, prompting the lawmaker to ask for donations during interviews on cable TV.
“I’m getting overwhelmed,” Graham told Hannity on Fox News last month. “LindseyGraham.com. Help me. They’re killing me, money-wise. Help me. You helped me last week — help me again. LindseyGraham.com.”
Harrison added that he lost respect for Graham over the years as he saw him become more accustomed to the Beltway.
“I used to respect him greatly,” he said. “I thought he was a good guy who could rise above the political freight, but what we have seen is he’s why people hate politics.”
