Lindsey Graham is predicting his opponent's record fundraising haul will spark a 'backlash'


Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has his hands full this week as the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, holds Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, but he's still caught up in a tightly-contested re-election battle in South Carolina. His Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, made headlines this weekend after his campaign announced he received a record-breaking $57 million in donations in the third quarter of 2020. Graham on Monday said the figure was "impressive," but suggested that it could actually hurt Harrison at the voting booth.
As Graham sees it, the flood of cash is a national response to the fact that he helped confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and is considered a political ally of President Trump. And he doesn't think it will play well back in the Palmetto state, where he believes there's "a backlash building" since he claims it looks like Harrison is "trying to buy the state."
It's true that Harrison has received a good number of out-of-state donations, but that's pretty common for a candidate in a smaller state like South Carolina, including Graham himself.
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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
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