The Republican Party was accused of shielding South Carolina Senate candidate Darline Graham (R), who is struggling to keep the seat she was appointed to after her brother Lindsey Graham passed away.
That was a claim made by former DNC chair Jaime Harrison on Monday morning, who was backed up by MS NOW’s Ali Vitali, who claimed the GOP has a real problem on its hands.
During his appearance on “Morning Joe,” Harrison marveled that Graham, who is new to politics, is barely campaigning for the election next Tuesday.
Harrison, who ran against Lindsey Graham for the Senate seat in 2020, told the hosts, “I would have given my right arm to run in this type of atmosphere than run in 2020. I mean, you think about it, there's a lot of difference between my race and hers,” before adding that in 2020 Donald Trump was on the ballot then.
“Darlene Graham, you know, has barely raised enough to even put up an ad on television,” he observed. "She was dark for a few months, and it was the Senate leadership that had to come in in order to save her.”
“In the meantime, [Democratic opponent] Annie Andrews has had more television ads up than any other candidate, Democrat or Republican, on the ballot in South Carolina. And then Annie has been all over the state. Darlene is like, you know, playing ‘Where Waldo.’ She's not on the campaign trail at all because they're trying to hide her because she's so incompetent. She's a nice woman. She just isn't ready for the United States Senate.”
MS NOW’s Ali Vitali, who has ties to South Carolina from previous campaigns, contributed, “I am getting the weirdest outreach from my Republican sources in South Carolina, people who I met covering Trump when we were out there in 2015 and 16, who are saying, I'm seeing Annie Andrews signs in yards of people who should never have an Annie sign.”
“There's justsomething weird happening in South Carolina,” she added. “Do I think that it is enough to say that the Senate is flipping in South Carolina? No, but the [Republican] Ralph Norman write-in campaign or the lack of endorsements from him and people in his orbit is super notable. It has Republicans in the state worried.”