♪ [This Week In South Carolina opening music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [music ends] ♪ Welcome to This Week in South Carolina.

I'm Gavin Jackson.

This week we speak with Dr Joey Von Nessen.

He's a research economist at the U.S.C.

Darla Moore School of Business but the state of manufacturing in South Carolina.

But first, I'm joined by Jamie Lovegrove.

He's a political reporter at the Post and Courier about what's going on with politics this week and big news on the gubernatorial campaign front with former Democratic Congressman Joe Cunningham jumping in the race.

<Jamie> Yes.

It seems pretty clear after Joe Cunningham lost his congressional seat last year that he was not walking away from politics.

You know, the decision he really needed to make and seem to be weighing was whether or not to try and re-claim that congressional seat and run against Nancy Mace who defeated him or to run statewide and run for governor.

Ultimately, he clearly decided to go this path.

He had been pretty outspoken over the last three or four months in criticizing Governor McMaster, which I think tipped us all of us off to the direction he was leaning.

And he does come into this race with some advantages that Democrats do not typically have.

Namely that he already has a big fundraising email list he can he can reach out to.

He already has name ID, especially in the Charleston area, but really all around the state.

There are folks who've heard of Joe Cunningham.

You know, he ultimately decided to go this route and launch his campaign on Monday morning.

<Gavin> Talk about scaling up statewide.

It sounds like they're trying to replicate what they did in the 1st Congressional District back in 2018 statewide.

Obviously that's an uphill challenge.

We haven't elected a Democrat statewide about 15 years and a Democratic governor since 1998.

How can you do that necessarily I mean we've also heard that from other people like Krystle Matthews is challenging Senator Tim Scott.

It's an up hill battle at that point.

<Jamie> It is.

There's no question this is going to be - either Governor McMaster or whoever wins the Republican primary, quite frankly, if there is one, will be the strong favorite heading into this.

Especially after we saw last year, Democrat Jaime Harrison raised 130 million dollars and still lose by ten points to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

This is definitely going to be a battle.

Part of it is going to be replicating one thing that Jaime Harrison did, which is raise a lot of money.

You know, there are folks including Governor McMaster's campaign who will say you know if you look at what happened to Jaime Harrison, that's proof that you know money doesn't matter.

You know no matter how much you raise, you can't overcome the Republican advantages, the built in Republican advantages, in a conservative state like South Carolina.

You know the fact the matter is that it is difficult with money.

It is impossible without money.

So, he needs to be raising a lot.

He already has been raising a lot.

He announced yesterday he told his campaign told the Post and Courier that he had raised about 400 thousand dollars in the first 48 hours of his campaign.

That's more than Governor McMaster raised in the first three months of 2021.

In two days he was able to raise a lot more than Governor McMaster raised in three months.

Those are the type of resources that would help a Democrat introduce themselves to any voters who are not familiar with them and hammer away at the incumbent on TV run a really well oiled machine of a of a campaign operation and travel all around the state and that seems to be what his plans are.

<Gavin> I'll follow up with the money in a moment.

Just want to talk about what that means to other Democrats who might jump in the race.

We heard from Congressman Jim Clyburn that two other Democrats have reached out to him talking about this governor's race.

What's the state of play there?

and do you think that this 400 thousand dollars in 48 hours is a pretty big shot across the battle front when thinking about getting in this race, at this point?

<Jamie> I would imagine so.

Yes.

As you said, Congressman Clyburn told us there are at least two others that have told him they are planning to run or looking at running.

We've heard a number of names over the last several months of folks mostly speculative of who we think might run: State senator Mia McLeod is often talked about, former State Representative Mandy Powers Norrell, who was James Smith's running mate in the 2018 governor race, State Representative Justin Bamberg, some folks talked about sometimes.

I'd imagine there are several folks still looking at it.

But, yeah, I would think that seeing someone raise 400 thousand dollars would be intimidating if you're going to try to get into a primary with them.

And Joe Cunningham has is better known than any member of the State House.

There's no question about that.

There are quite a few state lawmakers, I think who look in the mirror every day and see a governor and are excited about that prospect.

But the fact of the matter is that Joe Cunningham won a nationally watched congressional race in 2018, stunned a lot of political observers.

And you know had a really meteoric political rise at that point.

He is far better known than any of those folks.

So, it will be an uphill climb for them against him.

I imagine he will be the favorite no matter who else gets into this race at this point.

But, you know there are some pretty politically smart folks in the State House and they could give him a run for his money.

Quite literally, they could make him spend some of that money that he's been raising.

<Gavin> Jamie, you were talking about Jaime Harrison versus Lindsey Graham.

We saw that race last year, 2020.

He lost by ten points.

Obviously, a presidential election year.

Obviously, a very big presidential election year.

How do we contrast that with what we'll see in 2022 when it's a mid term year.

Obviously, Joe Biden will still be on the ballot, in some degree.

But better chance maybe to make in roads than what we saw with Jaime Harrison despite that money?

<Jamie> That would be one of the arguments Democrats would make for why 2022 could be more favorable to them.

The fact of the matter is there are a lot of Republican voters who only show up at this point when Trump is on the ballot.

They came out in huge numbers in 2016.

They came out again in huge numbers in 2020.

But turn out is always way down in mid term years.

And if Democrats can come close to maintaining their turn out from 2020 and Republicans' goes down without Trump on the ballot, perhaps that could lead to some sort of kind of sneaking up on the governor and sneaking up on his supporters and kind of making a surprise run there.

But, you know there also of course a lot of democratic voters in 2020 who were energized in opposition of Trump.

The fact that he's not on the ballot.

The fact there's no presidential race on the ballot, means that there will just be in general, less turn out on both sides and this is a very different year.

We do have you know one other statewide race on the ballot in the Senate race, which we did not have.

In 2018 there was no Senate race in 2018.

So, perhaps that can also engender some enthusiasm from voters.. <Gavin> Before we jump to Tim Scott and his response to the President from last night.

I want to ask you about just you mentioned about Republicans and there might be a potential challenger for Governor Henry McMaster.

What's the vibe right now?

Obviously, we're still far away from the primaries next year, but we're hearing of John Warren and potentially, Senate Republican leader Shane Massey.

Any further rumblings on that we should be on the look out for?

<Jamie> You know it's a quiet on that front over the last couple of months, especially on John Warren side frankly.

He had been kind of making some noise early in this legislative session.

He weighed in very heavily on some of the judicial races weighed in on Santee Cooper, was very involved in the elections last year, the State House elections supporting some of the Republican candidates.

Some of whom won in those really key state Senate districts.

But he's gotten a little bit quiet recently, which does make you wonder whether he is looking at some of the advantages McMaster has and giving it a second thought.

The governor has been endorsed by President Trump, again as he was in 2018, which again, sort of returns the favor that Governor McMaster gave to Trump when he endorsed him in 2016.

And he also is going to have another advantage that he didn't have in 2018, which is that he has the full support of the Republican Governors' Association.

It's not a small deal.

It's the national organization that works to elect Republican governors.

They were not really behind him before the primary in 2018, because the fact that he was not really technically running for reelection.

He had risen to the governor's office by virtue of the fact that Nikki Haley had left.

He had won.

They stayed out of the primary in 2018.

In 2022, they made very clear they're going to be fully behind him before the primary.

That gives him extra resources It gives him a network of donors to reach out to That's significant.

I wonder if John Moore for looking at that.

<Gavin> For sure.

Plenty to keep an eye on for that 2022 race.

I'll switch gears to Senator Tim Scott who gave a response, Republican response to President Joe Biden's, his speech to Congress last night, Wednesday night.

We're taping on Thursday morning.

This always is a tough gig for a lot of speakers, because it can go either way.

We saw Nikki Haley navigate it in 2016.

Now, it's Tim Scott's turn.

What was his message?

We didn't really hear too many policy issues, a little more combative.

What did you take away from his speech?

<Jamie> Tim Scott is a very reliable speaker for the Republicans.

He is a team player.

He has sort of the, not in a disparaging way, the talking points down.

He sticks to the script.

And he also has a very compelling personal story of growing up in poverty, son of a single mother in North Charleston, and rising to be, in his words, the classic example of the American dream.

Of course, he is really, really critical for Republicans to expand their electorate, to build a more diverse party.

He is still the only Black Republican in the Senate one of the only two ever elected since Reconstruction, and so he had both sort of an optimistic message in some ways, but also really hammering Biden and going after him.

I'd say his messaging on schools and re-opening schools may resonate with a lot of folks were seeing some movement on that in South Carolina, right now.

But, combining those classic Republican talking points with a compelling personal story is really the reason why Republicans want to put him front and center and continue to discuss the potential of him maybe seeking higher office himself in the future.

<Gavin> One of his big lines, which he actually I think borrowed from Nikki Haley's Republican National Convention speech was "America is not a racist country."

That line drew a lot of criticism, even Vice President Kamala Harris, this morning responded saying "I don't think America is a racist country, "but we also do have to speak truth "about the history of racism in our country "and its existence today."

Tim Scott did mention about being pulled over before.

He also mentioned being followed around in stores and intolerance going on right now in the country.

As he says it.

He's in a difficult spot, unique place.

How do you jive that?

How does that mesh with maybe his messaging in the unique space that he is in as a Black Republican in the Senate?

<Jamie> It's always been a difficult spot for him.

And racial issues is really one of the only areas where he spoke out against Trump during his administration.

He criticized his response to the Charlottesville situation and occasionally would say that he would knowledge that Trump has some tendency to be racially insensitive.

Although, he was very much adverse to suggesting he's actually racist, but you know, that is kind of the burden that Senator Scott has to bear.

I think there are a lot of times when he's not enjoyed the fact that it's the first thing he's asked about, but he has leaned into it a little bit more over the last few years.

He's tried to offer sort of a counter narrative to African American progressives.

Saying that discrimination is real.

That he has been subject to it.

He's talked in the past though he didn't mention this last night, but about being stopped by Capitol police asking to see his ID, not and believing he's a senator.

So, that is something that he has had to deal with a lot and if he does continue to be a part of the national political conversation, I imagine that is going to be an issue he's going to have to continue to talk about.

<Gavin> Jamie, I want to ask two more questions really quickly.

We're taping this show Thursday morning, former Vice- President Mike Pence will be speaking before a group here in Columbia, this evening.

S.C. is officially on 2024 watch, it sounds like.

What can we expect to hear from the former Vice-President tonight?

<Jamie> Based on everything we've heard from Mike Pence in the past, I imagine, it will be a pretty standard, Republican speech.

He rarely deviates off script or says anything particularly surprising.

I can imagine he'll be touting the Trump administration's accomplishments and laying into Biden a little bit, not dissimilar to what we heard frankly from Tim Scott last night.

But you know the question I'm almost more interested in is how he's received.

This is very much a home crowd for Mike Pence tonight.

He's speaking to the Christian evangelical conservatives.

That is really his core base of support, if he's going to continue to be involved in national politics.

Of course, there are a lot of Republicans who were very upset with Mike Pence.

They were - President Trump by no means dissuaded them from the notion that he could have somehow overturned the election results single handedly.

He, of course has said that was just not a possibility, but that has hurt his political stock among some Republicans.

So, this is really his first attempt to kind of resuscitate his political brand.

And I imagine that even though he is facing criticism from Trump, he's not going to distance himself from Trump at all.

He knows that the future of Republican politics is all about tying yourself to Trump as much as possible.

<Gavin> With like less than a minute left, just tells us a little about this state GOP chairmanship race.

It's pretty wild stuff to watch for the insiders who are paying attention here.

<Jamie> Right.

So, very quickly Lin Wood, who was the election attorney from Georgia who made all those sort of baseless claims about election fraud in support of President Trump after the election.

He moved to South Carolina.

He says in February.

It's not exactly clear.

There are some people who allegedly might have moved before the election and illegally voted in Georgia - ironic.

But he moved, bought several million dollars worth of plantations in the southern part of the state, announced he was running for South Carolina GOP Chairman against incumbent Drew McKissick, who has been endorsed by Trump.

He was endorsed by Trump twice.

He was endorsed by Trump before Lin Wood got into the race and then the day after Lin Wood got into the race.

Trump reiterated his endorsement of McKissick and Republicans are coming off an extremely successful 2020 election cycle in South Carolina, so it's been an odd time for someone to be challenging the incumbent.

But Lin Wood has been going after him saying he's going to drain the swamp in the South Carolina GOP.

And he has picked up you know at least a fairly sizeable amount of support.

It's not clear that it would be enough to unseat Drew McKissick, but it's been a very combative race over the last few weeks.

<Gavin> Yes.

We'll see how it ends in a few more weeks.

Jamie Lovegrove with the Post and Courier.

Thank you always for your insight and be sure to follow Jamie on Twitter and read his news in the Post and Courier.

Thanks.

<Jamie> Thanks Gavin.

<Gavin> Joining me now is Dr Joey Von Nessen.

He's a research economist at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.

And he has some new research for us to talk about, the state of manufacturing in South Carolina.

Dr.

Von Nessen, welcome back.

<Dr.

Von Neesen> Thank you, Gavin.

It's always good to be with you.

<Gavin> We appreciate having you on.

You give us all the great information about the business, the economy and numbers in the state.

Let's talk about some numbers.

Some new stuff you came out with.

This research paper on the state of manufacturing in South Carolina.

What are we seeing?

We've already known this is a big industry, but what is your research pointing to now?

<Dr.

Von Neesen> Well, the purpose of this study was really to capture a comprehensive assessment of manufacturing in South Carolina because what we find is that even though manufacturing is well known as having a strong economic footprint in the state, it's never the less, often under reported by as much as 20% because it permeates so many different areas of the state and so in this study, we wanted to do a comprehensive assessment looking at its total size and we find among other things that manufacturing not only has been a major contributor and the primary contributor to the great growth that South Carolina has seen over the past decade, but it basically represents about 30% of the employment base in South Carolina today.

If we go back over the last decade, we see that manufacturing has grown at about three times the rate of South Carolina as a whole, pulling up South Carolina's growth rate, that's especially true for advanced manufacturing, meaning the automotive, the airspace and the tire sectors, but we also see that manufacturing has seen more growth in South Carolina than any other southeastern state and we have been doing well relative to national averages in terms of our growth in advanced manufacturing especially, because manufacturing also provides a significant wage premium above the average South Carolina job of about 33%.

We see that manufacturing really gives an opportunity to many South Carolinians for broad-based prosperity through generating a high volume of high wage, high skill positions.

<Gavin> Joey, you said we're number one in the southeast when it comes to manufacturing.

What keeps us so hot.

How do we stay there?

<Dr.

Von Nessen> Well, we have a number of competitive advantages in South Carolina.

So, two that we have are really at the forefront.

One is infrastructure and the other is workforce development.

So, our infrastructure, everything from the Charleston port, to our railway system, to our highway system and combining that with our geography, just where we are physically positioned provides manufacturers with a great resource to be able to produce their goods here and then distribute them across the world, either globally or domestically.

So, that is a key advantage.

And then secondly, workforce development, which actually ties into the second element of the study.

We do a very good job in South Carolina, the technical college system especially of matching employer needs with workers in South Carolina.

But we're seeing some significant pivots in those workforce needs.

The other part of the study is really a call to action to say that we can't rest on the laurels that we have seen and we have to continue to evolve with market trends so that manufacturing can continue to be a driver in the next decade.

<Gavin> Speaking about workforce development, your study finds that a significant amount of these jobs, these advanced manufacturing jobs require some form of post secondary education.

So, if I'm a high school student right now or someone who's in between jobs, looking for a change, what should I be thinking about?

Should I be thinking about going to a tech school?

Should I be thinking about going to a four year college?

How does that align maybe with what I should be looking, in terms of jobs and the most in demand jobs?

<Dr.

Von Nessen> The most in demand jobs, we find are more likely to be in high tech fields, especially as we move forward over the next decade.

That's an area for individuals to think about specializing in.

For example, about 10% of the high demand occupations - well, I'm sorry about 10% of the occupations today in manufacturing are high tech fields, in high tech fields of engineering, engineering technicians and related fields, but about 50% of the high demand positions are in that high tech space and are likely to be over the next decade.

There's going to be a sizeable movement in that direction.

That's where I think individuals want to be looking for how they can participate and be trained in those specific occupations.

But the technical college system is the way to do that.

Is a prominent way to get access to that training and to get access to these job openings.

<Gavin> So, maybe get a good - get your feet with a tech school, get into an industry, see how you feel about it, if you want to move up, engineering sounds like the way to get into a higher level position, but still high paying jobs, nonetheless - <Dr.

Von Nessen> Exactly.

and it's not just about a four year degree.

That's the other major take away here.

It's about post-secondary education.

So, while more and more positions require a certificate or a two year degree or a four year degree, they don't by any means all require four year degrees.

So, there are multiple paths to success.

That's one of the broader advantages of manufacturing, is it does provide multiple paths to very strong career opportunities for South Carolinians.

<Gavin> Joey, I did a a simple monster.com search.

I just searched manufacturing.

It's such a wide swath of jobs out there, a couple thousand it looks like.

So, plenty of job openings.

Are we being held back by just the sheer number of job openings?

Do we have enough work force?

Are we importing people to the state to fill these jobs?

<Dr.

Von Nessen> Well, the short answer is both.

We are attracting people from outside of the state to fill part of that need.

We are seeing South Carolinians that are hired, but the workforce challenges are something that we have seen in the last several years before the pandemic for manufacturers.

And not just manufacturers but for employers across multiple industries.

That problem is coming back as we recover from the pandemic.

Manufacturers and others are currently seeing an emerging workforce shortage.

So, that is a real challenge that we continually have to address in South Carolina and elsewhere.

<Gavin> I want to talk quickly about that when we talk about wages in a moment, but I want to wrap this up, really quick I feel like with the advancement of manufacturing in the state, it really replaces how we went through the whole textile bust early in the 90s and such.

Is there any worry for people out there thinking, "Should I jump into manufacturing."

Is there a worry that it might come and go?

We have seen some of these industries come and go.

What's the assurance out there for folks that this is here to stay that we're going to continue growing with this?

<Dr.

Von Nessen> All the competitive advantages that South Carolina had before the pandemic are still with us and have been enhanced in some in some cases.

So, infrastructure and work force development still too powerful, competitive advantages that South Carolina has in addition to our low cost of living, our natural amenities.

We have a number of other advantages for why companies will want to locate in South Carolina.

However, we do have to stay on top of the changes in industry trends.

One example that we hear a lot about, these days, is the transition to electric vehicles.

That's going to be a significant shift or possible significant shift in manufacturing over the next decade in automotive manufacturing, of course.

And so what does that imply for changes to the supply chain for South Carolina?

What does that imply in terms of the importance of energy costs?

And what does that imply for the changes in the skill sets required for workers.

Of course that shift towards more high tech occupations is part of that.

And South Carolina is aware of that.

We're looking to continue to transition, but that's where the market is headed.

But as long as South Carolina stays on top of these trends, there's no reason we can't be just as competitive in the 2020s as we were in the 2010s.

<Gavin> With less than a minute left, we covered so much, tell me the latest on economic indicators facing our country now.

We saw GDP We saw the Fed with some data.

And just where we stand in South Carolina now.

South Carolina is looking very good.

So most of our industry sectors have either mostly recovered or fully recovered with the exception of leisure and hospitality, which is still down about 13%, but having said that we're about to see it scale up significantly as we move into the summer months.

Consumer confidence has seen a boost.

We've seen that in the data, as well.

So, we're seeing people come back and spend in the service sector.

So, the bottom line is that South Carolina's recovery is coming along well.

We expect significant gains throughout the summer months.

<Gavin> Dr Joey Von Nessen with USC's Darla Moore School of Business.

Thank you for joining us, as always.

<Dr.

Von Nessen> Thank you, Gavin.

Always good to be with you.

>> Stay updated throughout the week with the latest news and politics, check out the South Carolina Lede.

It's a podcast I host twice a week and you can find it on SouthCarolinapublicradio.org or wherever you find podcasts.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina.

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