Lindsey Graham challenger touts $270K haul in first 24 hours of campaign

Democrat Jaime Harrison said Thursday that he raised $270,000 in the 24 hours after announcing his bid to oust Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

The six-figure haul came from nearly 9,500 contributions, Harrison’s campaign said, with an average donation size of just $29.

Wow. In the 24 hours since we launched this campaign we have raised $270,000 — and our average contribution is only $29! I’m feeling blessed, humbled, & excited by your trust. Now let’s keep it up and #SendLindseyHome!

— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) May 30, 2019

Harrison, who served as the first African American chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, formally announced his campaign this week with an online video in which he blasted Graham as a political opportunist who supported President Trump only after doing so became advantageous.

That video, Harrison’s campaign said, has been viewed more than 1.1 million times.

{mosads}Harrison’s Senate bid is likely to be a tough one. South Carolina hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2006, and Trump won the state by 14 points in the 2016 presidential election.

On top of that, Graham has a well-financed campaign operation. He reported raising more than $2 million in the first quarter of 2019 — a bigger haul than some of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates — leaving him with roughly $4.6 million in cash on hand, according to his most recent federal filings.

Harrison, however, is hinging his campaign message on the notion that Graham is a Washington insider who has “traded his moral compass for political gain.”

“Sometimes people have been in Washington too long and I think Lindsey’s probably one of them,” Harrison told The Hill in an interview following his campaign announcement on Wednesday.