Senator Lindsay Graham has been in office since 2003, and on Tuesday, he secured his fourth term in the Senate by defeating Democrat Jamie Harrison.
Around 10 p.m. ET, the Associated Press projected Graham will win reelection.
State Senator Marlon Kimpson says Harrison beat a record by raising the most money ever earned by a U.S. Senate candidate.
“Who would have ever thought that an African American from a deeply red state would outraise his opponent and raise a sum of $100 million and lead in the polls,” Kimpson said.
State Senator Kimpson says Harrison would like to expand access to affordable healthcare and take on criminal justice reform.
On the other hand, Senator Graham is known in the Senate for his advocacy of a strong national defense and aggressive interventionist foreign policy.
“We looked to Senator Graham for a level of calmness, a reasonable and principled approach. Particularly when he was paling around with Senator John McCain. We looked to those two Republicans to be truly bipartisan and advocate for their respective states,” Kimpson said.
However, State Senator Kimpson says U.S. Senator Graham had shown a very partisan approach since President Donald Trump got elected.
City Councilor Perry Keith Waring agrees.
“Believe it or not I have been a fan of Lindsey Graham for a lot of years. But it seems to me since John McCain died, he is not the moderate voice or somewhat independent thinking person that he once was," Waring said.
KJ Kearney, a voter in his 30s, says Harrison understands the voice of all people.
“I think the thing that he does understand is Black people are not a monolith. There are conservative Black people, there are liberal Black people, there are all types. And I think he sees the humanity in us and will accept us as the totality of Blackness and not just the Black block that voted for him or didn’t vote for him," Kearney said.
If Harrison had won, South Carolina would have been the first state in U.S. history to be simultaneously represented by two Black senators, the AP reported.
