Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison speaks at a rally at a Masonic lodge in Columbia on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. Behind him are (L-R): Wayne Borders, candidate for state House, state Sen. Tameika Isaac Devine, state Rep. Jermaine Johnson and Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Chair Ken Martin. (Abraham Kenmore/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — Jamie Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is traveling from Alaska to Florida this election cycle to turn out the vote.
But he also had to cast his own ballot, and for that he came back home to the Palmetto State.
On Wednesday evening, Harrison disembarked from a blue bus emblazoned with the slogan “when we vote we win” and walked into an early voting location on Hampton Street in Columbia with Christale Spain, the state Democratic Party chair.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison exits an early voting location on Hampton Street in Columbia on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024 (Abraham Kenmore/SC Daily Gazette)
“Folks, it is always good to be back home,” Harrison told a small crowd afterwards at a nearby Masonic lodge, wearing a fresh “I voted” sticker.
Standing with a collection of Statehouse incumbents and candidates, along with local, state and national party leaders, Harrison encouraged South Carolina Democrats to put in the work heading into Election Day to turn out voters.
“Just like the Good Book says, ‘faith without works is dead,’ but life has taught me, hope without action is never realized,” he said.
Speaking to reporters after the rally, Harrison said that Democrats are committed to a 50-state strategy, with the DNC investing in every state for the first time since 2006. Even in blood-red South Carolina, there are important opportunities for Democrats, he said.
“I think Christale (Spain) has the potential, and the party, to pick up some seats in the Statehouse,” Harrison said. “We gotta continue to chip away at this big red wall here in South Carolina.”
Spain said the party hopes to recover some of the state House seats they lost to Republicans two years ago and keep the Republicans from picking up any seats in the state Senate — where flipping even one Democratic seat would give the GOP a supermajority.
“We have an opportunity to pick up more Statehouse seats than we have this century, so that is a victory for us,” she told reporters.
Harrison, originally from Orangeburg, is former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party. He ran unsuccessfully in 2020 against Lindsey Graham for a seat in the U.S. Senate.