Democratic candidate for Senate Jaime Harrison is giving his opponent Lindsey Graham the toughest fight of his U.S. senatorial career.
Lindsay, a three-term incumbent, is feeling the pressure, as he recently made a spectacle of Harrison not releasing his tax returns. Last week, Graham released 11 years of state and federal tax returns, urging Harrison to do the same. When Harrison didn’t release his returns, Graham attacked him on Twitter.
It’s been 72 hours since I released 11 years of state and federal tax returns and challenged @HarrisonJaime to do the same. Crickets. What is he hiding? https://t.co/ZjAsKhLDqx
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) September 12, 2020
However, Harrison released his return a day later, then took a dig at Graham and his friend President Trump, posting on Twitter, “Done. Now do President Trump.”
“It’s a desperate ploy by somebody who understands that he’s in a fight for his life,” Harrison told Essence.
A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday showed both candidates at 48% and in the two days after, Harrison’s campaign announced two straight fundraising days of $1 million apiece, bringing his total fundraising to over $30 million.
“Senate control hangs in the balance as the GOP confronts a likely nail biter in South Carolina and a possible knockout in Maine, offset by a presumably solid lead in Kentucky,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy told the AP.
Graham’s request that Harrison releases his tax returns, highlights the tightening race as the election draws near. President Donald Trump has a long history of using the courts to hide his own returns, even after the Supreme Court ruled against the president in his fight to keep his returns secret.
Graham is still favored to retain his Senate seat, but if he is upset, it could be considered as the beginning of the so-called blue wave of Democratic support in the election.
Additionally, all eyes are on Graham after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Graham, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, would oversee confirmation hearings for a new justice. Graham tweeted Saturday night that he would support President Trump “in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg.”
However, the statement is a stark reversal from his comments in 2016 when Graham pushed his chips into the middle of the table.
“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination,’ ” Graham said after Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in 2016. “And you could use my words against me and you’d be absolutely right.”
If a Justice is confirmed, much to the public’s dismay, it could cost Graham his seat.