The Post and Courier - Sen. Lindsey Graham Turns to Getting Out the Vote in Race

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By Jeffrey Collins

With less than three weeks to go before the election, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham wasn't rallying hundreds of voters at a campaign stop. Instead, he was driving to Republican Party headquarters in Aiken County to thank about two dozen volunteers for making phone calls.

As the days dwindle before the Nov. 4 election, the race for Graham's U.S. Senate seat is more about making sure Democrats and Republicans get their voters to the polls than pulling new people into the fold.

That's why after a hard-fought primary where he spent millions on commercials, Graham is running a quieter general election campaign. He is crisscrossing South Carolina visiting local party offices, expressing his gratitude to volunteers by name.

The 30 minutes he spent in Aiken on Tuesday was his latest stop, telling the GOP faithful they need to make thousands of phone calls for him and fellow Republicans such as Gov. Nikki Haley and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott as well as those further down the ballot, because Graham said while primaries are every candidate for themselves, the general election is about the Republican team.

"You need people on the phone vouching for you, putting your bumper sticker on their car and your signs in their yards," Graham said. "That's what the last three weeks are about - going to the people who have helped me all these years and saying, 'Thank you."'

Graham appears to be on his way to an easy victory. A Winthrop University poll earlier this month had 46 percent of likely voters supporting Graham, compared to 28 percent for Hutto.

Hutto said he still has a chance. His supporters point out Graham is still below 50 percent. If Hutto can get the 45 percent to 47 percent a good Democratic challenger often gets in statewide elections, then independent candidate Thomas Ravenel and Libertarian Victor Kocher might draw enough votes away for an upset.

"This is really about turning out your base. We have four people in this race," said Hutto, a state senator from Orangeburg.

Graham also has a distinct money advantage. He raised just under $700,000 from July through September, slowing the pace from 2013 when he raised more than $1 million each quarter as he geared up for re-election. Graham also still has about $3 million in his bank account, and has raised over $13 million since his last election. Hutto raised less than $200,000 during the same period and started October with about $120,000 in his campaign account.

Hutto said that's enough to be on TV the last weeks of the race. He wishes the national Democratic party had sent some money his way, but he said he can win without their help.

"Fortunately, polls don't vote and money doesn't vote. People vote," Hutto said.

When Ravenel submitted his 17,000 signatures to get on the ballot in August, he figured to be a disruptive force, if not on Election Day, at least through his reality TV show "Southern Charm." Crews from the show have followed him around to some events.

The chief questions he gets on the campaign trail are about how the daughter he had with a "Southern Charm" cast member half his age is doing (very well, Ravenel almost always says as his campaign manager pulls out her cellphone and shows off a photo of 7-month-old Kensington) and about the cocaine conviction in 2007 that chased him from his job as state treasurer and destroyed his climb as a rising Republican star. Ravenel refused to release his campaign spending report before it is put online.

Graham has plenty of history on his side. South Carolina voters haven't kicked a Republican incumbent out in a statewide race since 1998. Since Republicans were able to end Democrats stranglehold on the state in the 1960s, an incumbent U.S. senator has never been kicked out of office.

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