COLUMBIA, S.C. – Three Black female veterans of Democratic Party politics are ripping a page out of Georgia’s successful playbook by launching a new South Carolina-focused political action committee with the goal of reengaging and registering more voters ahead of 2022.
Despite massive fundraising success in 2020, South Carolina Democrats fell short last year, losing two key federal races and a handful of State House seats that gave Republicans more power in the General Assembly. It’s why Christale Spain said forming 46 Hope Road PAC — a nod to South Carolina’s 46 counties and the state’s motto, “While I Breathe, I Hope” — is key to ensuring Democrats’ success.
Democrat Jaime Harrison, now chairman of the Democratic National Committee, received more than 1 million votes last year in his unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid against Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. That was a result, said Spain, who worked on Harrison’s campaign, of Harrison’s fundraising ability and energy around the campaign. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presented outreach challenges — a sign, Spain said, that showed room for growth.
“It just really solidified to me we don’t have enough chips on the table for us,” Spain said. “We just don’t have enough chips.”
Joining Spain, a senior adviser to the state Democratic Party who worked as former presidential candidate Cory Booker’s state director and worked for House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, are two women with deep political ties in Democratic Party politics.
Bre Maxwell, Harrison’s former political director and a national committeewoman, is the PAC’s vice president of outreach and community engagement. O. Elena Kershaw, the former operations director of the South Carolina Coordinated Campaign who also worked on Democrats’ presidential campaigns, is the fundraising arm’s vice president of training and operations.
While the PAC is tracking dozens of municipal races in South Carolina this year, Spain said the PAC will be especially focused on the 2022 governor’s race — an office a South Carolina Democrat has not held since former Gov. Jim Hodges, who beat Republican Gov. David Beasley in the 1998 election.
But Spain also hopes the PAC will keep Democratic talent inside South Carolina, a traditionally red state.
“What has happened during the presidential primary cycle, we train so many organizers but there are not a lot of opportunities in South Carolina. So, they engage and train, then all of sudden it’s over,” Spain said. “I would love to be able to make this a place for political operatives, organizers to land after every election.”
The PAC’s launch follows a windfall of wins for Georgia Democrats, who not only flipped the state for President Joe Biden in November but flipped two Senate Republican seats in January, giving Democrats the majority in the Capitol’s upper chamber. Among the political organizers and advocates leading that effort was Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic candidate for governor who raised thousands of dollars through her political action committee to register voters after her 2018 loss.
On the other end of that PAC were the state’s Black voters, particularly young Black voters, who turned out in droves after aggressive outreach efforts throughout the state sparked, in part, by the Black Lives Matter movement protesting the deaths of Black men and women after encounters with police over the past year.
Harrison also launched a committee — the Dirt Road PAC — after the November elections.
“Georgia did what we didn’t do, playing the long game,” Spain said. “We’ve got to get voters registered and engaged and speak to them about the things that matter to them. The success from Georgia shows us it can be done.”
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