theatlantic--2020-10-31--Brace for a Blizzard of Disinformation

Brace for a Blizzard of Disinformation

“ The goal here is really not producing evidence that stands up for any length of time , ” Laura Quinn , a progressive researcher monitoring election disinformation , told me .
“ They ’ re interested in sowing just enough doubt … to develop this narrative of fraud—not only so that he can contest the election , not only so that he can refuse to concede a loss , but also so that some portion of his supporters will remain embittered and be able to say the results were illegitimate.
” ( A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on this story . )
Read : The billion-dollar disinformation campaign to reelect the president Partisan poll-watching has a long history in American politics—Trump did not invent it .
But this is the first presidential election since 1982 in which the Republican National Committee is allowed to organize such activities without permission from a federal court .
For nearly four decades , the party was restricted by a consent decree issued after a New Jersey election in which Republicans allegedly hired off-duty police officers to patrol minority neighborhoods wearing “ National Ballot Security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expired in 2018 .
This history , combined with the president ’ s support among militias and other extremist groups , has fueled fears that the Army for Trump could lead to confrontation and even violence at the polls .
In September , a noisy crowd of Trump supporters was accused of intimidating voters and disrupting an early-voting location in Fairfax , Virginia .
( The Virginia Republican Party responded to these complaints on Twitter : “ Quick !
Someone call the waaaambulance !
” ) But the poll watchers ’ real influence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home and start uploading their videos .
Three Democratic strategists who are involved in post-election “ scenario planning ” told me that—barring a blowout on Election Night—Americans should expect a last-ditch disinformation blitz from Trump and his allies to create the impression of wide-scale cheating .
( The Democrats requested anonymity to candidly describe strategy discussions . )
“ This Election Day poll-watching will be part of a whole campaign to dispute , delay , and bring into doubt the counts in various states , ” one Democrat told me .
“ [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rigged-election narrative for a while , ” another told me , “ and he needs tools to show that the votes that are rolling in are probably these rigged votes : So here ’ s the video evidence !
” Some of the Democratic hand-wringing had a slightly panicked , paranoid quality , rooted in the trauma of 2016 .
“ Will there be photos and videos purporting to be , for instance , Chinese intelligence agents stuffing ballot boxes ?
” one Democrat mused .
“ Probably , yes .
And even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poor and the provenance is suspect , they will have at least some audience .
”

Last month, Donald Trump Jr. squinted grimly into a camera—his hair slicked, his voice hoarse—and issued a call to arms for MAGA nation.
“The radical left are laying the groundwork to steal this election from my father,” he declared in a video posted to the Trump campaign’s Facebook page. “Their plan is to add millions of fraudulent ballots that can cancel your vote and overturn the election.” To defeat these scheming radicals, he warned, they’d need “every able-bodied man [and] woman” to join an organization called the Army for Trump: “We need you to help us watch them.”
Like so much of Donald Trump’s presidency, the recruitment video straddled the line between menacing and self-parodic. Don Jr.’s claim was preposterous on its face (no, a massive voter-fraud conspiracy is not under way in America), and his militaristic rhetoric had the faintly silly quality of cosplay. But the “election-security operation” he was pitching is actually a key element of the Trump campaign’s closing strategy—and its capacity to wreak havoc next week could be significant.
In the coming days, thousands of pro-Trump poll watchers are set to fan out across battleground states—smartphones in hand—and post themselves outside voting locations to hunt for evidence of fraud. This “army” has been coached on what to look for, and instructed to record anything that seems suspicious. The Trump campaign says these videos will be used in potential legal challenges; critics say their sole purpose is to intimidate voters. But in recent conversations with a range of unnerved Democrats and researchers, I was offered another scenario: If the president decides to contest the election’s results, his campaign could let loose a blizzard of misleading, decontextualized video clips as “proof” that the vote can’t be trusted.
“The goal here is really not producing evidence that stands up for any length of time,” Laura Quinn, a progressive researcher monitoring election disinformation, told me. “They’re interested in sowing just enough doubt … to develop this narrative of fraud—not only so that he can contest the election, not only so that he can refuse to concede a loss, but also so that some portion of his supporters will remain embittered and be able to say the results were illegitimate.” (A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on this story.)
Read: The billion-dollar disinformation campaign to reelect the president
Partisan poll-watching has a long history in American politics—Trump did not invent it. But this is the first presidential election since 1982 in which the Republican National Committee is allowed to organize such activities without permission from a federal court. For nearly four decades, the party was restricted by a consent decree issued after a New Jersey election in which Republicans allegedly hired off-duty police officers to patrol minority neighborhoods wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands. The decree expired in 2018.
This history, combined with the president’s support among militias and other extremist groups, has fueled fears that the Army for Trump could lead to confrontation and even violence at the polls. In September, a noisy crowd of Trump supporters was accused of intimidating voters and disrupting an early-voting location in Fairfax, Virginia. (The Virginia Republican Party responded to these complaints on Twitter: “Quick! Someone call the waaaambulance!”)
But the poll watchers’ real influence may not be felt until they go home and start uploading their videos. Three Democratic strategists who are involved in post-election “scenario planning” told me that—barring a blowout on Election Night—Americans should expect a last-ditch disinformation blitz from Trump and his allies to create the impression of wide-scale cheating. (The Democrats requested anonymity to candidly describe strategy discussions.)
“This Election Day poll-watching will be part of a whole campaign to dispute, delay, and bring into doubt the counts in various states,” one Democrat told me. “[Trump] has been setting up the rigged-election narrative for a while,” another told me, “and he needs tools to show that the votes that are rolling in are probably these rigged votes: So here’s the video evidence!”
Some of the Democratic hand-wringing had a slightly panicked, paranoid quality, rooted in the trauma of 2016. “Will there be photos and videos purporting to be, for instance, Chinese intelligence agents stuffing ballot boxes?” one Democrat mused. “Probably, yes. And even if the quality of these videos is poor and the provenance is suspect, they will have at least some audience.”
Of course, Trump could simply win or lose the race outright, without any of the drama that many are anticipating. But it’s not far-fetched to expect a spike in unsubstantiated voter-fraud claims around Election Day. Such rumors often gain traction in the final days of a presidential race—and Trump and his media allies have been especially invested in amplifying them this year.
Nate Snyder, who served as a counterterrorism official at the Department of Homeland Security under Barack Obama, told me that if Trump contests the election results, things could quickly “converge into a perfect storm of disinformation.” In the already-overheated political environment, foreign adversaries could circulate conspiracy theories online, while domestic trolls and extremist groups amplify their own toxic messages. Chaos would be the goal—and Snyder says United States intelligence agencies are preparing for it.
“But I’ll be pretty blunt about this,” he added. “We have a unique situation now where we have to worry about what we’d call, in security terms, an ‘insider threat.’ You have a president who is focused on pushing out whatever kind of information, from whatever sources, to help his narrative.” It might not just be Russian trolls and “boogaloo boys” trying to “sow discord,” he said—the president himself may be part of that effort.
Read: The election that could break America
There are reasons to doubt the sophistication of Trump’s operation. His campaign has hemorrhaged money this year, and suffered several high-profile logistical failures. (Remember Tulsa?) A recent perusal of the #ArmyforTrump hashtag on Twitter revealed that it had been temporarily hijacked by K-pop fans. And my own efforts, earlier this fall, to enlist in the campaign’s poll-watching efforts in Virginia were unsuccessful. After an initial phone call asking if I was willing to travel to another state (I said I was), I never heard back. It’s possible that someone spotted my name on the list and screened me out because I’m a reporter. But it seems just as likely that my application was lost in the shuffle of a disorganized campaign office.
Some Democrats, meanwhile, are skeptical that collecting and amplifying video “evidence” of voter fraud will actually benefit the president. “Nothing has done more to bolster people’s faith in voting early and in person than videos of people perfectly happy to wait in line to vote Trump out of office,” Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, told me. Prioritizing conspiracy theories over conventional get-out-the-vote efforts, he added, “would be consistent with every other incompetent Trump strategy.”
Still, if the Trump era has taught us anything, it’s that a well-oiled political machine isn’t necessary to cause chaos. As I’ve written before, the most effective modern disinformation is defined by what scholars call “censorship through noise”—drowning out the truth with a barrage of lies, distortions, and conspiracy theories designed to confuse and exhaust.
“Bad actors aim to break down trust because it makes us insecure,” Jiore Craig, a researcher who advises Democratic campaigns on disinformation, told me. “When we’re insecure, we’re defensive, and when we’re defensive for a long time, we get tired—and when we’re tired, we’re easy to control.” She told me that her recent research suggests a level of fatigue in the electorate right now that could easily curdle into apathy, making it difficult to sort out truth from lies if the election becomes a long, complicated, drawn-out affair.
“The danger,” Craig said, “is that you just go with the loudest voice in the room to put it to an end.”


theatlantic--2020-10-31--The Trump Campaign’s Chaotic Closing Strategy


theatlantic--2020-11-02--The Big Story: The 2020 Election Will Shape the Future of America

Join Atlantic senior editor Ron Brownstein , assistant editor Christian Paz , and staff writer Derek Thompson for a live @ @ @ @ @ the presidential race could be remembered as a hinge point in the nation ’ s @ @ @ @ @ hear what you think about this article .
Submit a letter to the editor or @ @ @ @ @ .

Ron Brownstein, Christian Paz, and Derek Thompson discuss the presidential race, live at 11 a.m. ET on November 3.
The Big Story: The 2020 Election Will Shape the Future of America
Join Atlantic senior editor Ron Brownstein, assistant editor Christian Paz, and staff writer Derek Thompson for a live Election Day conversation about how the presidential race could be remembered as a hinge point in the nation’s history.


theatlantic--2020-11-02--Trump’s Risky Bet on Rural America

Trump’s Risky Bet on Rural America

Just as notable were the voters who were there for Trump ’ s taking , who didn ’ t support him last time but were giving him a chance as president .
Pete , a sales manager in Bethlehem , New Hampshire , who declined to give his last name , called Clinton “ the lesser of two evils ” and told me his vote for her wasn ’ t an easy choice .
“ I was rooting for him the first year , but that was it , ” he said of Trump .
“ He ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believe anything he says.
” Despite the lack of racial diversity across the region , the topic of race came up , unprompted , again and again .
With a mix of anger and sadness , white voters said they were taken aback by the racism exposed during the past four years , most shockingly in the killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis and in the protests that followed .
In their voices I heard a common lament : The nation had not made as much progress on race as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ making it worse .
The president had tried to exploit the unrest to his advantage , warning that cities and suburbs would succumb to violence and crime , while vowing to restore “ law and order.
” Polls found , however , that the strategy backfired on Trump , as white voters recoiled from his effort to crack down on the protests .
Marjorie and Larry Lewis , retired political independents from an upstate–New York district that swung from Obama to Trump , were two voters that the president might have once been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 80 , voted for Clinton but called it “ a mistake.
” Marjorie , 79 , liked Trump when he was on The Apprentice .
“ When he was on TV , he was funny .
He ’ s a showman , ” she told me , before adding : “ He should have stayed a showman.
” As we sat in a diner , they wanted to talk about white supremacy , about the Black Lives Matter protests and Trump ’ s handling of them .
Marjorie Lewis bemoaned all of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is not safe to live in , ” she said .
But she and her husband both blamed the president , not the demonstrators .
“ He stokes the fires , ” Larry told me .
“ The Republican Party to me is a dead party until Trump is gone .
Anything that is negative in this country goes back to Trump.
” More than 150 miles to the northeast , in New Hampshire , Pete from Bethlehem used the same words to describe the president ’ s handling of race : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we stood outside a grocery store on Main Street of the small hillside town , he pointed to the brewery down the street , which had put up a sign supporting Black Lives Matter that was met with racist comments in online forums .
“ I didn ’ t realize it was as big in this town as it is , ” Pete told me .
Even among those sticking loyally behind the president , there were hints of wariness about his style .
Invariably , Trump ’ s supporters touted his policies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York , I met David Manny , a 69-year-old independent who had owned a taxi company before the rise of Uber and Lyft destroyed his business—a development for which he blamed Governor Andrew Cuomo .
Manny is a truck driver now , and he tried to explain Trump ’ s appeal , and his shortcomings .
He told me he can “ overlook ” Trump ’ s style for his policies , but he acknowledged that many others can not .
“ I know why he exaggerates , because I exaggerate , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his exaggerations , and they call it a lie.
” Manny compared the president ’ s relationship with voters to that of a doctor and his patients .
“ It ’ s sort of like a bedside manner .
He doesn ’ t have one , ” Manny said .
A lot of people , he noted , want a bedside manner .
“ I have a lot of doctors , ” Manny said .
“ I don ’ t need a bedside manner .
If you can fix me , I like @ @ @

LEVANT, Maine—Hardly anyone knew that President Donald Trump was on his way here. And among those who did get a whiff of the news in advance, even fewer knew his destination was Treworgy Family Orchard in Levant, a tiny rural town about 10 miles northwest of Bangor. Four years ago, two-thirds of Levant’s 1,523 votes went to Trump. He needs all of them on Tuesday—and probably more.
The Trump campaign never announced the stop, and even the reporters flying with the president on Air Force One had no idea where he was headed. But word had quickly gotten around. Charles Bernice, an 80-year-old amateur pilot, spotted a notice of a flight restriction in Bangor due to a presidential visit. He and his wife drove two hours from their home in Newcastle without waiting to find out where Trump would appear. Vanessa Lincoln, 55, didn’t learn about the event until late Sunday morning, but within an hour, she was standing excitedly in a long security line at the orchard. “I’d have driven five,” she told me. Brittany Davis, 36, and her 10-year-old son, Jackson, never heard about the event at all. They just saw all the cars on their street and figured it out. “Trump’s coming to Treworgy’s!” Jackson had shouted.
By the time the president’s motorcade deposited him at the orchard shortly after 3:30 p.m., hundreds of supporters—perhaps more than 1,000—had gathered for a glimpse of him on a sunny fall afternoon. And a glimpse, it turns out, was all they got, because Trump hadn’t come to Levant for one of his signature rallies. There was no microphone or sound system set up, not even a platform for him to stand on. Parents held small children on their shoulders, pointing through the mass of people and instructing them to look for—what else?—“the hair.” Others kept their phones in the air, the video running, in the hopes that even if they couldn’t spot the president, their cameras would. Trump walked through the opening of a bar and signed red MAGA hats for a few minutes. He then grabbed a megaphone, spoke for two and a half minutes, and left. Except for the people standing near the front, it was impossible to hear more than a few words of what the president had to say.
In the cold calculations of the waning days of a political campaign, the citizens of Levant probably weren’t worth a full, 90-minute Trump show, if they merited a visit at all. The small town sits in the middle of a congressional district that backed Barack Obama in 2012 but awarded Trump an electoral vote in 2016—the only one he earned in the Northeast that year. But if there aren’t many votes in Levant, there are a lot of Levants in America; in a map of the nation’s political topography, they are the thousands of specks comprising the enormous red sea between and around the blue metropolises.
The president’s goal is to squeeze just a couple hundred more votes—perhaps even a few dozen, in a place like Levant—out of each of these small cities and towns, not only in rural Maine but in its counterparts in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It is in these states that a higher turnout of white, working-class voters is likely to accrue to Trump’s benefit rather than Joe Biden’s. Levant is almost entirely white, as is Maine, which is the whitest state in the nation. Polls show that Trump has made marginal improvement in his standing with Black and Hispanic voters, but simply based on their numbers, it is white voters who will decide this election, just as they did four years ago. And with more than half the vote likely already in before Election Day, the president’s chances appear to rest on his ability to turn out more of the conservative white voters who sat out in 2016, or backed a third-party candidate such as Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee who captured 5 percent of the vote in Maine four years ago. On Sunday in Levant, it seemed possible that Trump’s bet could pay off. Most of the people I talked with said their decision to back Trump was easier this time around, and a few told me they knew people who would be voting for him for the first time this year.
“He’s done everything he said he was going to do,” Acacia Emery, a 40-year-old educator from Baileyville, told me. She said she almost didn’t vote in 2016 but was happy with Trump’s handling of the economy and border security. “I believe he’s going to win overwhelmingly,” Emery said.
The core problem for Trump, and the reason he is expected to lose his reelection bid, is that the additional votes he draws out of places like Levant must offset the white voters who have deserted him en masse in the suburbs, and to a lesser extent, polls suggest, in exurban and rural communities that backed him so strongly four years ago. Hillary Clinton won Maine by just under three points, 48–45—a margin that came closer than all but one other state (Nevada) to matching the national popular vote. Trump has trailed Biden by double digits in every public survey in Maine for the past two months, as well as in several recent polls of neighboring New Hampshire, which Clinton won by an even smaller margin in 2016. (Unlike in some states, the polling averages for both states in 2016 were close to the eventual result.)
Trump’s loss of support in Maine and New Hampshire can’t be explained by a surge in enthused opposition from voters of color, because neither state has many of them: The president is doing worse because he’s doing worse with white voters.
Read: The November surprise
Over the course of a week in mid-October, at campaign events, polling sites, and in shops and restaurants, I interviewed dozens of voters across Maine, New Hampshire, and upstate New York, which is demographically and politically similar to the upper reaches of New England. The large majority of people told me they were voting the same way they did in 2016, and those who initially hesitated to offer their views were about equally divided between the candidates. From Trump supporters, I heard arguments that were echoes of the president’s own rallies and his own favorable coverage on Fox News—the story of a nonpolitician who spoke his mind and had done what he said he was going to do. They frequently questioned Biden’s mental acuity, calling him “a puppet” or “a placeholder” for Senator Kamala Harris, his running mate. One couple, Mark and Talia Harmon, who manage vacation rentals in Maine, credited the president’s stewardship of the economy for improving their business. “Work has exploded,” Talia said. “He’s accomplished an amazing amount of great things while being attacked the entire time,” Mark added.
As loyal as many of the president’s backers were, it was far easier to find new support for the Democrats than for Trump, either from people who voted for Trump in 2016 or who had voted for a third-party candidate. “Nothing’s been handled,” Ethan Gagnon, a 30-year-old in Lewiston, Maine, told me. He voted for Trump in 2016 (“I just didn’t like Hillary,” he said) but was switching to Biden, citing the president’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis as his top reason. “I’m just ready for it to be done,” Gagnon said of the pandemic.
Just as notable were the voters who were there for Trump’s taking, who didn’t support him last time but were giving him a chance as president. Pete, a sales manager in Bethlehem, New Hampshire, who declined to give his last name, called Clinton “the lesser of two evils” and told me his vote for her wasn’t an easy choice. “I was rooting for him the first year, but that was it,” he said of Trump. “He’s a crook. I just don’t believe anything he says.”
Despite the lack of racial diversity across the region, the topic of race came up, unprompted, again and again. With a mix of anger and sadness, white voters said they were taken aback by the racism exposed during the past four years, most shockingly in the killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis and in the protests that followed. In their voices I heard a common lament: The nation had not made as much progress on race as they had assumed, and Trump was making it worse. The president had tried to exploit the unrest to his advantage, warning that cities and suburbs would succumb to violence and crime, while vowing to restore “law and order.” Polls found, however, that the strategy backfired on Trump, as white voters recoiled from his effort to crack down on the protests.
Marjorie and Larry Lewis, retired political independents from an upstate–New York district that swung from Obama to Trump, were two voters that the president might have once been able to win over. Larry, 80, voted for Clinton but called it “a mistake.” Marjorie, 79, liked Trump when he was on The Apprentice. “When he was on TV, he was funny. He’s a showman,” she told me, before adding: “He should have stayed a showman.”
As we sat in a diner, they wanted to talk about white supremacy, about the Black Lives Matter protests and Trump’s handling of them. Marjorie Lewis bemoaned all of the violence. “We have a country that is not safe to live in,” she said.
But she and her husband both blamed the president, not the demonstrators. “He stokes the fires,” Larry told me. “The Republican Party to me is a dead party until Trump is gone. Anything that is negative in this country goes back to Trump.”
More than 150 miles to the northeast, in New Hampshire, Pete from Bethlehem used the same words to describe the president’s handling of race: “He stoked the fires.” As we stood outside a grocery store on Main Street of the small hillside town, he pointed to the brewery down the street, which had put up a sign supporting Black Lives Matter that was met with racist comments in online forums. “I didn’t realize it was as big in this town as it is,” Pete told me.
Even among those sticking loyally behind the president, there were hints of wariness about his style. Invariably, Trump’s supporters touted his policies while lamenting his rhetoric. In upstate New York, I met David Manny, a 69-year-old independent who had owned a taxi company before the rise of Uber and Lyft destroyed his business—a development for which he blamed Governor Andrew Cuomo. Manny is a truck driver now, and he tried to explain Trump’s appeal, and his shortcomings. He told me he can “overlook” Trump’s style for his policies, but he acknowledged that many others cannot. “I know why he exaggerates, because I exaggerate,” Manny said. “They use his exaggerations, and they call it a lie.” Manny compared the president’s relationship with voters to that of a doctor and his patients. “It’s sort of like a bedside manner. He doesn’t have one,” Manny said. A lot of people, he noted, want a bedside manner. “I have a lot of doctors,” Manny said. “I don’t need a bedside manner. If you can fix me, I like you.”
Trump’s hope is that the Americans who tolerate his bombast will join with those who revel in it to make, if not a majority, then a coalition just big enough to win—that the hundreds who dropped everything and hopped in their cars on a chilly Sunday in rural Maine are indicative of a broader fervor unaccounted for in the polls. But it is equally, and possibly more likely, that the results of the election will show that Trump cannot find enough votes in the Levants of America to make up for the legions of white voters who have deserted him, and that the hearty loyalists who filled that orchard field are not members of a growing movement, but the remnants of a shrinking one.


theatlantic--2020-11-04--The South Has Already Changed

The South Has Already Changed

COLUMBIA , S.C.—This was the speech Jaime Harrison didn ’ t want to give .
He rocked back and forth on the small outdoor stage .
“ We proved that a new South is rising .
Tonight only slowed us down , ” he told the small crowd of aides and supporters standing on the grass in front of him last night .
“ But a new South with leaders who reflect the community and serve the interests of everyone will be here soon enough.
” Moral victories have no place in the zero-sum game of electoral politics .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loss , and he found it in the shifting perception of the South , which was already visible in his candidacy .
Harrison ’ s race was not unlike the 2018 campaigns of Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Andrew Gillum in Florida .
He raised tens of millions of dollars in his bid to unseat Senator Lindsey Graham , and , despite a defeat , the national buzz he earned illustrated the changing scope of what Americans believe is politically possible in the South over the next decade .
Like Abrams , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Black voters .
He had also hoped to woo white voters who had become disillusioned with Graham , and he exploited Graham ’ s flip-flopping on supporting President Donald Trump .
The guy who called Trump “ unfit for office ” in 2016 was criticizing others for doing the same a year later , Harrison told audiences across the state .
Harrison aimed to show South Carolinians that , despite Graham ’ s shift , the state had gained little from its senator ’ s political friendship with the president .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a chance of competing with the three-term senator , let alone outraising him in campaign donations .
The Trump administration ’ s bungled response to the coronavirus crisis made Harrison ’ s arguments about Graham and the president even more prescient .
Nearly 4,000 South Carolinians have died of the virus so far this year .
And , as Harrison had no problem highlighting during the campaign , instead of passing a second coronavirus-relief bill , Republicans—led on the Senate Judiciary Committee by Graham—rushed to confirm a conservative Supreme Court justice .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his aggressive voter-registration efforts .
His planned tour across every county in South Carolina moved online in a state where nearly a quarter of rural residents lack minimally acceptable internet speeds .
“ I ’ ve waited 28 years to have the resources to hire 150 people to feed like locusts on neighborhood doors , ” Trav Robertson , the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party , told me .
But he couldn ’ t do that .
Meanwhile , Republicans had few qualms about such in-person campaigning .
They had a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the partisan lean of the state and ride Trump ’ s coattails to victory .
Democrats , especially Black Democrats , needed everything to break the right way for success in the South—but first , they needed to believe that the fights here were worth waging .
What ultimately became a neck-and-neck race between Harrison and Graham was an important turn in the state ’ s modern history .
Harrison saw his candidacy as a challenge to the sins of the past .
The 1960s in Orangeburg , South Carolina , began @ @ @ @ @ @ @ historically Black colleges , Claflin University and South Carolina State University , marching to protest segregation .
The police greeted them with fire hoses—and arrested hundreds , including James Clyburn , now the state ’ s most prominent Democrat .
By 1968 , Orangeburg showed visible signs of change—schools were desegregating , as were public parks—but Harry Floyd , the owner of All-Star Bowling Alley , nestled in the corner of a shopping plaza a few miles from where Harrison grew up , was resolved that his lanes would remain for white people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Orangeburg had urged Floyd to integrate the bowling alley ; students at the neighboring colleges craved entertainment beyond the movie theater and nightclubs , and a local Black bowling group was tired of driving more than an hour to Columbia to practice .
One February evening , John Stroman , a senior at South Carolina State , led a group of students to the lanes to change Floyd ’ s mind .
Police arrested a handful of them that night .
Stroman saw a classmate , Emma McClain , being beaten by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down .
Police clubbed another classmate across the back of his head , leaving a gash in his skin .
Theories ran wild among the town ’ s white residents .
They said the protests were the work of “ outside agitators ” —Black radicals intent on burning Orangeburg to the ground .
That Wednesday , a white man who lived near Claflin blasted bird shot at a group of students , wounding them .
Then , as night fell on Thursday , February 8 , a highway patrolman fired a warning shot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how the police had been treating them over the preceding days .
His fellow patrolmen , unsure of where the shot came from , opened fire on the students , who had turned to run .
Some were hit in the back .
Others in the leg .
One student thought someone was pulling his coat ; he later realized it was the tug of bullets piercing his jacket .
Three students—Samuel Hammond , Henry Smith , and Delano Middleton , a high schooler—were killed .
At least 28 others were injured in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Orangeburg massacre ; it does not neatly comport with the anti-war protests or the civil-rights battles in other states of the Deep South .
But Harrison grew up with that specific history , and hears its echoes in the present .
“ I ’ ve lived all my life with these scars , this historical pain that has been passed on from generation to generation to generation , ” Harrison said during his final debate with Graham .
The Senate seat Harrison sought was once held by Ben Tillman , a man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and by Strom Thurmond , who ran for president on a platform defending segregation .
Though Harrison did not claim that Graham was the virulent racist Tillman and Thurmond were , he did not shy away from suggesting that Graham ’ s worldview was informed by the way they led the state .
“ This guy is just a relic of the old past , ” Harrison told me .
Jesse Jackson predicted Jaime Harrison ’ s campaign .
In 1984 , Jackson , then a long-shot candidate for the Democratic presidential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The majority of those victories were in Virginia , Louisiana , Mississippi , and his home state of South Carolina .
Four years later , when Jackson again made a bid for the White House , he won three times as many delegates in South Carolina as his nearest competitor , and swept the Deep South .
The South was still the South , though .
And Democrats , in the late stages of the “ Great White Switch , ” when they became members of the Republican Party we recognize today , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans swept into power in statehouses and governor ’ s mansions .
The old logic remained that a Black statewide candidate would be walloped by white southerners who would be unwilling to support him in a general election .
Then , in 2008 , America elected its first Black president .
A surge of Black mayors soon won races in major cities across the South .
A decade later , Abrams showed that with the right mix of voter registration , money , and charisma , Georgia and the Deep South were within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whoever ran in that cycle was going to have a very , very desirable shot , right , because [ Trump ] was that bad , ” Don Calloway , a Democratic strategist , told me .
But without the infrastructure Abrams built to support her candidacy—the hundreds of thousands of voters her organization registered—she would not have come within 55,000 votes of winning the governorship , he said .
Abrams nodded to the influence of her governor ’ s race when she spoke with my colleague Vann Newkirk in 2018 .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reality is , Georgia matters to everyone , ” she said .
“ If you change the leadership of Georgia , you change the South .
If you change the South , you change the country.
” Even if she was unable to win in Georgia that year ( her opponent , Brian Kemp , then the secretary of state , refused to recuse himself from overseeing the election , which was dogged by accusations of voter suppression ) , she changed the way people viewed the path to victory there .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that maybe we should go out and recruit more African American candidates , because they can articulate something and bring an energy and bring a focus that is unique , ” Harrison told me .
The South , and the Deep South in particular , fielded more Black candidates in 2020 than it has since Reconstruction .
This year was the manifestation of Abrams ’ s efforts , and those of southern Black activists and politicians before her , like Fannie Lou Hamer .
On Sunday , at a rally in Charleston along @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harrison reflected on the moment .
“ We are on the verge of having this great state being represented by two African American senators at the same time .
First time that ’ s ever happened in this country , ” he told me .
He allowed himself to hope ; his campaign , as he ’ d repeat at stop after stop , allowed people in the state to hope .
“ And that ’ s the progress that we have made.
” Harrison will not be the next United States senator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allowed Democrats to imagine what was possible in his home state ; it reminded national leaders why they should not write off the region .
If Democrats had invested in South Carolina—in the same way they invested in Georgia , for Abrams ’ s gubernatorial race and the 2020 election—might the result have been different ?
Using the voter list Harrison has assembled , will Democrats be competitive in the state moving forward ?
Abrams turned an unsuccessful gubernatorial bid into sustained influence within the Democratic Party .
She made former Vice President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vice-presidential nominees .
Harrison , who already had high name recognition among Democrats , now has a bona fide national profile .
The South can change .
In September , leaders of a nonprofit in Orangeburg announced that the bowling alley where the Orangeburg Massacre began will be transformed into a civil-rights center .
Harrison wound his concession speech to a close with an altar call .
“ We welcome anyone willing , ” he said , “ to help us write the story of the new South .
”

COLUMBIA, S.C.—This was the speech Jaime Harrison didn’t want to give. He rocked back and forth on the small outdoor stage. “We proved that a new South is rising. Tonight only slowed us down,” he told the small crowd of aides and supporters standing on the grass in front of him last night. “But a new South with leaders who reflect the community and serve the interests of everyone will be here soon enough.”
Moral victories have no place in the zero-sum game of electoral politics. But Harrison needed an upside to his Senate-race loss, and he found it in the shifting perception of the South, which was already visible in his candidacy. Harrison’s race was not unlike the 2018 campaigns of Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Andrew Gillum in Florida. He raised tens of millions of dollars in his bid to unseat Senator Lindsey Graham, and, despite a defeat, the national buzz he earned illustrated the changing scope of what Americans believe is politically possible in the South over the next decade.
Like Abrams, he ran a campaign predicated on massive registration of Black voters. He had also hoped to woo white voters who had become disillusioned with Graham, and he exploited Graham’s flip-flopping on supporting President Donald Trump. The guy who called Trump “unfit for office” in 2016 was criticizing others for doing the same a year later, Harrison told audiences across the state. Harrison aimed to show South Carolinians that, despite Graham’s shift, the state had gained little from its senator’s political friendship with the president.
Read: Can Democrats win back the Deep South?
In January, few people thought Harrison had a chance of competing with the three-term senator, let alone outraising him in campaign donations. The Trump administration’s bungled response to the coronavirus crisis made Harrison’s arguments about Graham and the president even more prescient. Nearly 4,000 South Carolinians have died of the virus so far this year. And, as Harrison had no problem highlighting during the campaign, instead of passing a second coronavirus-relief bill, Republicans—led on the Senate Judiciary Committee by Graham—rushed to confirm a conservative Supreme Court justice.
But the pandemic also forced Harrison to pause his aggressive voter-registration efforts. His planned tour across every county in South Carolina moved online in a state where nearly a quarter of rural residents lack minimally acceptable internet speeds. “I’ve waited 28 years to have the resources to hire 150 people to feed like locusts on neighborhood doors,” Trav Robertson, the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, told me. But he couldn’t do that. Meanwhile, Republicans had few qualms about such in-person campaigning. They had a plan that they could execute: Rely on the partisan lean of the state and ride Trump’s coattails to victory. Democrats, especially Black Democrats, needed everything to break the right way for success in the South—but first, they needed to believe that the fights here were worth waging. What ultimately became a neck-and-neck race between Harrison and Graham was an important turn in the state’s modern history. Harrison saw his candidacy as a challenge to the sins of the past.
The 1960s in Orangeburg, South Carolina, began with nearly 1,000 students from the local historically Black colleges, Claflin University and South Carolina State University, marching to protest segregation. The police greeted them with fire hoses—and arrested hundreds, including James Clyburn, now the state’s most prominent Democrat. By 1968, Orangeburg showed visible signs of change—schools were desegregating, as were public parks—but Harry Floyd, the owner of All-Star Bowling Alley, nestled in the corner of a shopping plaza a few miles from where Harrison grew up, was resolved that his lanes would remain for white people only.
For years, Black residents in Orangeburg had urged Floyd to integrate the bowling alley; students at the neighboring colleges craved entertainment beyond the movie theater and nightclubs, and a local Black bowling group was tired of driving more than an hour to Columbia to practice. One February evening, John Stroman, a senior at South Carolina State, led a group of students to the lanes to change Floyd’s mind. Police arrested a handful of them that night. Stroman saw a classmate, Emma McClain, being beaten by one officer as two others held her down. Police clubbed another classmate across the back of his head, leaving a gash in his skin.
Theories ran wild among the town’s white residents. They said the protests were the work of “outside agitators”—Black radicals intent on burning Orangeburg to the ground. That Wednesday, a white man who lived near Claflin blasted bird shot at a group of students, wounding them. Then, as night fell on Thursday, February 8, a highway patrolman fired a warning shot at a group of students upset with how the police had been treating them over the preceding days. His fellow patrolmen, unsure of where the shot came from, opened fire on the students, who had turned to run. Some were hit in the back. Others in the leg. One student thought someone was pulling his coat; he later realized it was the tug of bullets piercing his jacket. Three students—Samuel Hammond, Henry Smith, and Delano Middleton, a high schooler—were killed. At least 28 others were injured in the shooting.
Left: National Guardsmen march through Orangeburg, South Carolina, on February 8, 1968. Right: More than 100 Black Orangeburg residents are arrested protesting segregation on September 28, 1963. (Bettmann / Getty)
Historians often gloss over the Orangeburg massacre; it does not neatly comport with the anti-war protests or the civil-rights battles in other states of the Deep South. But Harrison grew up with that specific history, and hears its echoes in the present. “I’ve lived all my life with these scars, this historical pain that has been passed on from generation to generation to generation,” Harrison said during his final debate with Graham.
The Senate seat Harrison sought was once held by Ben Tillman, a man who defended lynchings on the Senate floor, and by Strom Thurmond, who ran for president on a platform defending segregation. Though Harrison did not claim that Graham was the virulent racist Tillman and Thurmond were, he did not shy away from suggesting that Graham’s worldview was informed by the way they led the state. “This guy is just a relic of the old past,” Harrison told me.
Jesse Jackson predicted Jaime Harrison’s campaign. In 1984, Jackson, then a long-shot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, won five statewide primaries. The majority of those victories were in Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and his home state of South Carolina. Four years later, when Jackson again made a bid for the White House, he won three times as many delegates in South Carolina as his nearest competitor, and swept the Deep South.
The South was still the South, though. And Democrats, in the late stages of the “Great White Switch,” when they became members of the Republican Party we recognize today, had begun to cede the region as Republicans swept into power in statehouses and governor’s mansions. The old logic remained that a Black statewide candidate would be walloped by white southerners who would be unwilling to support him in a general election. Then, in 2008, America elected its first Black president. A surge of Black mayors soon won races in major cities across the South.
A decade later, Abrams showed that with the right mix of voter registration, money, and charisma, Georgia and the Deep South were within reach for Democrats. “Theoretically, whoever ran in that cycle was going to have a very, very desirable shot, right, because [Trump] was that bad,” Don Calloway, a Democratic strategist, told me. But without the infrastructure Abrams built to support her candidacy—the hundreds of thousands of voters her organization registered—she would not have come within 55,000 votes of winning the governorship, he said.
Abrams nodded to the influence of her governor’s race when she spoke with my colleague Vann Newkirk in 2018. “My focus is on Georgia, but the reality is, Georgia matters to everyone,” she said. “If you change the leadership of Georgia, you change the South. If you change the South, you change the country.” Even if she was unable to win in Georgia that year (her opponent, Brian Kemp, then the secretary of state, refused to recuse himself from overseeing the election, which was dogged by accusations of voter suppression), she changed the way people viewed the path to victory there. “It just goes to show you that maybe we should go out and recruit more African American candidates, because they can articulate something and bring an energy and bring a focus that is unique,” Harrison told me.
Read: Stacey Abrams’s remarkable campaign for vice president
The South, and the Deep South in particular, fielded more Black candidates in 2020 than it has since Reconstruction. This year was the manifestation of Abrams’s efforts, and those of southern Black activists and politicians before her, like Fannie Lou Hamer. On Sunday, at a rally in Charleston along the banks of the Ashley River, Harrison reflected on the moment. “We are on the verge of having this great state being represented by two African American senators at the same time. First time that’s ever happened in this country,” he told me. He allowed himself to hope; his campaign, as he’d repeat at stop after stop, allowed people in the state to hope. “And that’s the progress that we have made.”
Harrison will not be the next United States senator from South Carolina. But his campaign allowed Democrats to imagine what was possible in his home state; it reminded national leaders why they should not write off the region. If Democrats had invested in South Carolina—in the same way they invested in Georgia, for Abrams’s gubernatorial race and the 2020 election—might the result have been different? Using the voter list Harrison has assembled, will Democrats be competitive in the state moving forward? Abrams turned an unsuccessful gubernatorial bid into sustained influence within the Democratic Party. She made former Vice President Joe Biden’s shortlist for potential vice-presidential nominees. Harrison, who already had high name recognition among Democrats, now has a bona fide national profile.
The South can change. In September, leaders of a nonprofit in Orangeburg announced that the bowling alley where the Orangeburg Massacre began will be transformed into a civil-rights center. Harrison wound his concession speech to a close with an altar call. “We welcome anyone willing,” he said, “to help us write the story of the new South.”