The following is a lightly edited transcript of the October 7 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Donald Trump erupted in a crazed, manic tirade this week about the South Carolina Senate race. He raged wildly at the Democratic candidate, Dr. Annie Andrews, smearing her with an anti-trans slur and unleashing all kinds of dim-witted lies about her to boot. Notably, this comes as a major GOP super PAC just poured $5 million into South Carolina to shore up GOP Senator Darline Graham. One Republican admitted that the GOP needs an “insurance policy” in the state, and two GOP-aligned pollsters have found the race to be very close.
We think the odds remain very long here, but now that Trump has signaled alarm about this race, we’re getting a download on it from Jalisa Washington-Price, a veteran South Carolina-based Democratic operative who heads the Democratic-aligned PAC Fresh Start. Jalisa, thanks for coming on.
Jalisa Washington-Price: Thank you for having me, Greg.
Sargent: So let’s start with the money. Axios reports that the Senate Leadership Fund, which is the leading Republican super PAC, is putting $5 million into this race as an “insurance policy.” One source told Axios: “We’re not taking anything for granted.”
Jalisa, two things. One, what does it say that they have to put this money in here, that they can’t take South Carolina for granted? And number two, are you seeing signs of their spending yet?
Washington-Price: Right. We haven’t seen signs yet, but as you know, we know that it’s coming, right? And South Carolina isn’t supposed to be on anybody’s battleground map this election cycle. But looking at the numbers, right, even right-leaning pollsters and polls show Annie Andrews in striking distance with Darline Graham, and a noticeable amount of undecideds still out there, right?
And that’s just not noise. Those are real numbers, that’s real enthusiasm that we’re seeing on the ground and hearing even from some of these pollsters that have been paying close attention to this race.
And the fact that Republicans are having to spend here, instead of being more competitive in these places that we were expecting, like in Michigan, you know, in some of these other states—it says a lot. And it’s also a warning sign for Republicans too, right? Like, what’s to come in November.
Sargent: Well, absolutely. So let’s talk about Trump losing it here. He viciously attacks Dr. Andrews, the Democratic challenger. She’s taking on Senator Darline Graham, who’s the sister of the late Lindsey Graham. Trump called her a vicious anti-trans slur twice and posted this:
“She is in favor of Transgender for Everyone, Open Borders, Defunding the Police, high taxes, a weak military, and will absolutely fight to take your guns away. She is against our Great Second Amendment!”
Trump also called her a low-quality person, while insisting Darline Graham is a high-quality one who can be trusted to have the right values. Jalisa, you just want to start by responding to all that?
Washington-Price: It’s unfortunate we have to respond to this and respond to the president’s comments. But as the saying goes, when you’re winning, you talk about your candidate, and when you’re losing, you talk about your opponent.
Trump’s post was almost all about Annie Andrews, and it tells you everything you need to know. When a conversation is about grocery prices and gas and health care, he knows he and the Republicans are going to lose that conversation and lose that discussion.
Sargent: Let’s talk about South Carolina for a sec. Trump won there by a whopping 18 points in 2024. Lindsey Graham won his last election there in 2020 by over 10 points. This is a red state. Can you just give us the rough demographic breakdown?
Washington-Price: So we have about three and a half million registered voters in South Carolina. Two out of three of those voters are white, and about one in four are Black, right? There’s no party registration in the state of South Carolina, so as of now, anybody can vote across lines in the primary. So it makes it hard for us to kind of track registered Republicans or Democrats in the state.
But what we’ve seen, particularly with the base of Democrats in South Carolina, Black voters—some of your voters in places like Columbia, which is a very Democratic county, somewhat of Charleston and in Greenville, some of your larger counties—you’re seeing the base very excited, not only for Annie Andrews but for Democrats across the state, right?
So you’re seeing that enthusiasm. You’re also seeing kind of the disenchantment with Republicans, and we like to call them non-MAGA Republicans, who are just tired of the fight. And they’re tired of, again, these culture wars that Republicans have been putting on our state, and they are ready for change.
And white voters, they make about six in ten for Darline Graham. And then we see about three in ten for Annie Andrews, according to the latest polls. And for Black voters, I think we have up to eight and nine out of ten for Andrews, which are real numbers, right? Like, those are real numbers. They’re showing real enthusiasm.
And we’re hoping to get those numbers up and really go after some of these undecideds. I think the last poll had about eight, almost 9 percent undecided, still out there and up for grabs.
And I know Annie Andrews, her team, as well as the IE—we are doing everything we can to talk to those voters and put the real issues in front of them, and really showing Annie Andrews’s credentials. She’s a pediatrician, she’s a mom of three. She’s fought her whole life for affordable health care, and she has a real plan to get South Carolina and this country back on track.
Sargent: So brass tacks here. If you get really, really good turnout among Democrats, and Annie Andrews gets 90 percent of Democrats, something like that, maybe even higher, does well with independents—what percentage of Republican voters does she have to get to win?
Washington-Price: Percentage of Republican voters that we believe she would have to get to—I think it’s a short answer, roughly about one in five Republicans, if we can give or take away from the Republicans, right? I think we would do well. So roughly we would need between 15 to 20 percent of Republicans to get over 50 percent.
Sargent: That’s hard!
Washington-Price: It is. It’s very hard, right? And we always knew it was going to be an uphill battle, right? But again, I think even going back to the primary—you know, South Carolina was a part of the conversation around redistricting, right? And we were one of the southern states to reject redistricting in the state.
And one of the reasons I think that was, too, is because I think Republicans in South Carolina saw the enthusiasm and kind of the fire that that lit around Democrats. We had some of the highest number of early voters among Democrats, and particularly Black voters in the South, show up in our primary.
And those voters aren’t just going away, right? They’re continuing to be fired up. We’ve been continuing to fire them up and communicate to them, on top of trying to pull over some of the Republicans. And I think that has to be our goal and our strategy in order to win.
It’s not going to be easy. South Carolina has not voted for a Democrat in the Senate since Jim DeMint. And I can’t tell you how old I was when that was. So it’s also—if you see even, like, David Beasley, who came out publicly condemning—he was a Republican governor in South Carolina—he came out condemning Trump and his comments about Annie Andrews.
I think you’re seeing more Republicans even kind of create a permission structure for Republicans in South Carolina to say this is enough. We’re tired of this. It’s time for something new. And I think you’re going to see even more of that as we get closer to election day. It’s not going to be easy, but we are very optimistic about it. And I think Republicans see that too, right?
Sargent: Well, yes. And since you brought up David Beasley, who’s a former Republican governor of South Carolina, I just pulled up his response. He was quite condemnatory of Trump. He was quite strong on this. He said, “This is abhorrent. Elections don’t have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better.”
That’s strong stuff. David Beasley, I’m guessing, is a fairly well-respected former politician. Is there an outside chance that a sizable bloc of Republican voters listen to a retired Republican in the MAGA era, when Donald Trump is issuing his commands to them to see her as as trans or whatever the hell he thinks he’s saying?
Washington-Price: Yeah, I really do believe so, right? And it goes back to what I said early about some of these Republicans creating a permission structure for other Republicans to be able to vote for a Democrat. And I think David Beasley laid it out correctly. It’s like, there is no place for that type of rhetoric anymore in the political conversational landscape.
Again, Trump and these Republicans know, when you talk about the issues, you talk about affordability, you talk about health care, they lose every time. And that’s why he goes back to kind of these culture wars that he’s no longer winning. I think you want to see more Republicans come out publicly and get at some of this stuff too.
Sargent: Well, let’s talk about the polls. There’s Trafalgar, which showed Darline Graham up a hair, by 43 to 42, over Annie Andrews. InsiderAdvantage had a poll finding Graham at 46 and Andrews at 45. So both of those have the race at around a point, which is just unthinkable. And those are Republican pollsters as well. Are you guys polling?
Washington-Price: We have a poll out in the field now, so we’re hoping it comes back soon.
Sargent: OK. And where do you guys think the race is right now, candidly?
Washington-Price: I honestly think we’re in two-to-three-point striking distance from Darline Graham. Even when you think about kind of the generational divide—I think even the last polling, and we’re seeing it on the ground, had every age group under the age of fifty break in for Annie Andrews. Again, you think about enthusiasm, you think about who is excited and wanting to show up to the polls for a change, those are the demographics and that’s the age group that we know will show out, right?
And I think even if we can’t convert some of these Republicans, to your point, if we can get them to stay home and just, you know, throw their hands up with it, that’s a win for us. And it kind of goes back to the messaging that we are trying to drill home to these voters, right? Who is going to be best for your families, who’s going to be best for your future, your kids’ future?
And I think that’s what we’re seeing in the polling. I think folks believe that it’s going to be Annie Andrews, and that Darline Graham does not have a plan for the state, and that she’s just going to be a rubber stamp for Trump and his failed policies. And people are tired of that.
Sargent: Would you guys like to see some Democratic money come into the state from places like the Senate Majority PAC or from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee?
Washington-Price: We would definitely love to see it, right? And I think there’s a long-term play for South Carolina. If we can flip the seat for Annie Andrews, I think it sends a signal across the country. It sends a signal across the South that we are competitive and we can stay competitive.
Georgia and North Carolina have done it, and we are right in the middle of both of those states. We share media markets with both of those states. And we think, you know, any resources that come into South Carolina will benefit Democrats, and it kind of is an investment that is a long play for Democrats in the South.
Sargent: Well, it’s worth pointing out that both Georgia and North Carolina right now, those races have Democrats pulling away. In Georgia, it’s Senator Jon Ossoff, who looks like he’s basically on track to having this sewn up. In North Carolina, it’s Roy Cooper, who’s running for the open seat there. He also seems to have this close to sewn up. Republicans are pulling money out of both states.
I mean, as long as I’ve been following politics, if you had told me a while ago that the states where Democrats would be running away are Georgia and North Carolina, I would have looked at you like you were nuts.
Washington-Price: That’s right. Yeah, that’s right.
Sargent: And so the demographic story in Georgia and North Carolina is sort of similar. They’re very similar to South Carolina.
Washington-Price: That’s right.
Sargent: Well, I’m going to ask you about that, because Virginia’s the big success story. That’s the southern state that really first kind of moved in this direction that we’re talking about, with population growth in the northern parts of the state, the D.C. suburbs, kind of slowly outnumbering the vast rural structures of the state.
You see something similar but a little less pronounced in North Carolina, with some other East Coast hubs kind of really developing and becoming more Democratic and kind of slowly catching up with the rest of the state, which is enormously rural and red throughout. Is something like that happening in South Carolina? What’s the process there?
Washington-Price: I think so, right? South Carolina is one of the fastest-growing states in the country. Like, that is something that has been reported within the year. And I think you’re seeing that for a number of issues.
We’re seeing folks moving from across the country to places like South Carolina because of the affordability crisis that’s happening across our country. And they’re looking for opportunities, they’re looking for cheaper childcare, they’re looking for, you know, some affordable housing.
But what does that mean for a state like South Carolina, with these new people that have maybe come from bluer states or maybe even come from more moderate states, right? Like, how do we engage them? How do we get them kind of baked into the political culture in South Carolina? And how do we get them to vote for Democrats? And I think that is the type of long-term investment that we’re hoping not only the party, but some of these committees also will see and want to tap into.
And we’re seeing it in places like Mississippi and Alabama too. I do a lot of work across the South, and some of that’s kind of the same story we’re seeing across the board. You’re having folks that are moving into the state. You’re also having people move back, right, from the state, who were born and raised there, maybe left because of a number of issues, but they’re moving back. And we have to be able to capture those folks, engage with them, and talk about issues that are important to them.
And I think it’s a real opportunity for Democrats. But it has to continue and start now. Georgia and North Carolina didn’t just happen overnight. It took some work. And there’s a host of people, including, like, Stacey Abrams, who is to thank for that.
But I think because of that, you know, we’re seeing what Democrats can do when they win in these southern states. And I think we just have to keep hammering home on what it means for Democrats to win in the South.
Sargent: Well, Democrats need a southern strategy long term, because of what’s happening with some of these demographic changes in the North.
Washington-Price: That’s right.
Sargent: Which is, you know, chipping away at their Electoral College strongholds.
Washington-Price: That’s exactly right.
Sargent: OK, so you guys, the Fresh Start PAC—you guys are going up on the air in coming days, right? How much money are you putting in, and what’s the ad?
Washington-Price: This first tranche of ads that is coming out is about health care. It’s really hammering in on Annie Andrews’s kind of credentials and her fight when it comes to lowering health care costs in South Carolina. I think this first ad—and I’ll send you the article too, Greg—but we want to put about $2 million behind the first ad, and we’re still raising money. We’re hoping we get some more money.
Between me and you, I maybe shouldn’t announce this, and this might be breaking news, but we also have some testimonials from Republicans who have been lifelong Republicans who are breaking away from the party and voting for Annie Andrews, the first time voting for a Democrat. But they’re tired and they’re fed up.
Sargent: So these Republicans are going to be in these ads?
Washington-Price: Yeah. We have some testimonials with Republicans that are on camera, that are going to be in ads.
Sargent: Why don’t you give us one or two names? Nothing wrong with breaking news here.
Washington-Price: So one I can give you is—his name is Scott Singer. He was a former county councilman from Aiken County, which you could say is a mostly Republican county, or goes back and forth. It’s Joe Wilson’s district. But he was a lifelong Republican, and he is tired of the party. He has said that he’s voting for Annie Andrews this election cycle.
Sargent: And he’s going to be in your ad saying that.
Washington-Price: He’s going to be in our ad saying that.
Sargent: OK, well, listen, best of luck to you all. It’s going to be an uphill climb, but it’s certainly worth watching.
Washington-Price: It is. Greg, thank you so much for your time and having me on.