♪ ♪ Welcome to this week in South Carolina, I'm Gavin Jackson.

It's post Labor Day, which in American politics means it's a sprint to the election box on Election Day, November 5th.

We're going to set the scene for you with some of our favorite people, including Meg Kinnard with the Associated Press.

South Carolina Public Radio reporter.

Maayan Schechter and communications consultant, Rob Godfrey.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you.

Meg> Thanks for having us.

Gavin> Welcome to the sprint.

Meg, you and I have been on the campaign trail for, I don't know how many months.

Meg> Forever.

Gavin> How many years?

Yes.

I remember back when there were actually nine major Republican candidates in this race, including two South Carolinians.

We are now down to, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Ever since that decision by Joe Biden in late July to jump out of the race.

We are now less than 55 days away from Election Day, November 5th.

So set the scene first in terms of where this race stands right now.

It's been a wild couple, couple of weeks.

Where are we in this race?

Meg> It has been a wild couple of weeks.

And you know, every time I talk with colleagues about what's happened this summer, which is usually like, oh, this is going to be a little bit slower, maybe for the campaign.

Not this summer.

We've gone from an assassination attempt to a fruit basket turnover basically at the top of the Democratic ticket.

And now we're in this post Labor Day moment where voters across the country are really starting to tune in.

It's like a broken record.

We talk about it all the time, but this is the moment when the greater voting populace is saying, okay, what are my options?

What are...where am I making these decisions?

And I know we're going to talk about it in a little bit, but really it is the focus on these swing states, these pivotal places where the margins are anticipated to be close, where they've historically been close in recent elections.

The focus and the level of attention on those voters in particular is probably the most intense that I've ever seen.

And it's not that, you know, we out of the other states are forgotten about necessarily.

Clearly, our votes are just as important, but maybe not as pivotal in terms of coming down to, you know, the rubber meeting the road between those two major party candidates.

And so we're going to be seeing a lot more travel ...at the top of the ticket in terms of going to those places, but also really just seeing more ads, more influx of travel and just all of the overall messaging, surrogate travel.

It's really going to start to get intense.

And we've got what, 50 some odd days to go?

So, there's still plenty of time.

Gavin> Meg, just to piggyback on what you're saying: the travel, all the attention, all this nonstop coverage.

It's not the media.

You're a national politics reporter for the Associated Press.

It's not the media driving this, right?

...a lot of people are saying, "Oh my gosh, Kamala Harris had all this momentum.

The media was spinning it up.

That's not necessarily the case.

I mean, when news dictates, we cover the news.

And that's what happened.

Meg> That's right.

We cover especially for the AP.

We cover whatever is the top national news at the time, which how could you not say that replacing one top of the ticket nominee with another would be the top national story?

But yes, this was a major moment for not just the Democratic Party, but also for all across the political spectrum.

Just trying to figure out what is this major matchup that's going to be happening in the general presidential election.

And so it was on us in the media to cover that in real time.

From the moment that Joe Biden ended his reelection bid to the groundswell of support among Democrats to propel Kamala Harris to that nomination.

That was clearly something that we all had to cover each step of the way.

But it was the Democratic Party that set those processes in motion, and we were just following along and informing voters, because those choices clearly are going to matter to them.

Gavin> Yeah, we had a bit of a wild summer there.

Meg> Oh yeah!

Gavin> We were out to conventions, of course, but Meg, I'm going to keep with you for a moment here and talk about the debate on Tuesday night.

You were following from the AP's Washington bureau, Who needed to do what, on the historic debate stage...in Philadelphia?

What, you know, what do we see play out there between these two nominees?

Meg> This was definitely a really moment of intense, honed focus on Donald Trump, and for Kamala Harris, She hadn't been on a debate stage.

Clearly, the first debate that happened in the general election cycle was with Joe Biden.

And we all know how that went.

And that's kind of how we ended up here.

But so for her yes, she's been vice president.

But this was an opportunity for her to be introducing herself as a major party nominee to voters who have kind of been aware of what's happening certainly, but haven't heard directly from her.

She hasn't done a whole lot of media interviews, something that Republicans talk about a lot.

But this was, you know, 90 plus minutes of her making her case.

And for Donald Trump, it was to observe those interactions between him and Harris.

We hadn't seen that happen ever.

They hadn't even met until Tuesday night, certainly not debated.

And so it was an opportunity for voters to really be seeing, Okay, we might be familiar with some of his positions, but how is he going to be facing off with this candidate?

How is he going to be facing off with another female nominee, which clearly there was a lot of conversation in 2016 back when that happened with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

So there were a lot of dividing lines and moments of contrast.

But also on the issues.

I don't think a lot of minds are probably changed in that issue debate.

But, you know, it was really, for me, observing those political and stylistic differences.

Gavin> Yeah, that personality versus policy, which is dominating politics, of course.

Maayan, you were watching the debate.

You were covering the debate, here in Columbia with a bunch of Democrats watching that as well.

What were the takeaways from folks there?

What were some of the big reactionary moments that you saw play out in Columbia?

This was obviously a very pro Harris crowd, judging by the number of screams and hand clapping and then talking while Donald Trump was talking on the debate stage.

But there was some diversity in opinion about how she carried herself, for example, I talked to one person who felt like the mics really should have been turned on, while someone else said no.

Her facial expressions did what the mics could never, could never do.

I asked voters their thoughts on, what was her strongest moment, weakest moment.

Strongest was her answer on abortion care access.

And I saw that, with my own eyes, when she answered the question, the entire audience, dozens of people jumped up and screamed and clapped.

So it was very evident that, that was probably her strongest moment of the night.

And thankfully for probably all these voters who are watching, that came in the first hour, because by the second hour, people were starting to filter out.

That was her strongest moment.

Someone, I also talked to another voter who said that they felt like her strongest moment was talking about, former President Donald Trump's relationship with, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

They felt like that was good.

Her weakest moment talking about the border, felt like that could have been better and then also, they felt like she didn't articulate her policies well enough.

But then I talked to another voter who said, "Oh, it was incredibly refreshing "to hear her talk about policies for the first time, "really on the campaign trail."

I would say the overall takeaway, though, was that this is an excited crowd.

Everyone talked about the last presidential debate and what that could have looked like this round.

The momentum is there.

So, even if people didn't love Kamala Harris, even if people didn't love Donald Trump, they felt like Kamala Harris was still the stronger candidate on...that debate stage and it's the candidates who really carry the party moving forward.

Gavin> Yeah, I was up in Greenville with about 200 Republicans at a watch party up there, so completely different dynamic there, too.

A lot of people doing the same things, too; clapping at some of the big moments there from Trump.

Also, you know, talking over Harris, even during that abortion response.

It was kind of surprising.

A lot of people were kind of grumbling about her response there, even though that is such a huge issue for so many voters in this race since we're in this Post-Roe era.

But it was also interesting, too, because there is divisiveness within the Republican Party in South Carolina, but they are definitely still unified under Donald Trump, you know, in so many ways.

But...I was surprised when I talked to a number of folks.

The Republicans, were saying that she actually did a good job.

They were actually surprised by the job that she did.

Rob, you are watching that.

Obviously that's not going to change minds in that crowd.

But when you're looking at independents and moderate, moderate Republicans, maybe she did get some folks to come over or at least listen to her case versus Donald Trump.

Rob> I thought it was a tale of two debates.

In some ways, the first 25 minutes, I thought the former president did pretty well.

The first question, I think he did well, talking about the economy, talking about the economy under his presidency.

And I thought the vice president's answer, wasn't quite as strong, as her answers were on other issues, as the debate progressed.

But that, that was a moment.

And then, you know, we had, there were other takeaway moments as we started to, as the debate started to unfold, I think one of the, one of the most heartening moments, yeah, for the entire evening was when both candidates shook hands.

For the first time, we saw presidential candidates shake hands in a number of years.

That's something that we need to get back to.

I think everybody, can agree, too.

So when they embraced and shook hands, I thought that, that set a good tone for the night.

Although, you know, when we go back to the, much disputed issue of whether mics should have been, muted, I don't think that ended up making much of a difference because they both had a...

They both had great back and forths throughout the entire evening, regardless of, regardless of whether the... regardless of whether the mics were on, I think, moments that... people are going to remember from the debate, after that first 25 minutes that the former president, was able to find his footing talking about his record and talking about the economy was the kind of turning point where, crowd size became an issue and it clearly got under his skin.

And by the time crowd size was litigated, we'd turned into talking about, you know, some, some much more, you know, some much more controversial issues.

And memorable issues such as, you know, people's pets and stuff like that.

Gavin> Mistruths and statements that were debunked.

Rob> Yes, no question.

And so, I thought overall, when it comes to independence and when it comes to swing voters, I think that, Vice President Harris had a very strong night.

I think that they were, able as she was able to reintroduce yourself to many of them.

I think that she was able to do that on her terms.

She has a strong background as a prosecutor, someone who has obviously met the moment in a courtroom, met the moment, you know, and a long career in public service.

And so I think she did herself, as much of a favor as she could.

But conceding that this is a polarized country, a polarized electorate, and I don't know that there were many hearts and minds to win over for either candidate.

Gavin> One, I think a lot of folks were saying expectations were low for her, but at the same time they were pretty high because, you know, every little thing would have been scrutinized more so, than maybe some of his, you know, 33 or so mistruths, misstatements.

But Rob, you're a comms guy.

You have been in those debate prep rooms with our current governor, with the previous governor.

You kind of gave us a good overview there in terms of how they did.

But when it comes to debates, I mean, how much do they really matter?

We saw that some 67 million people did tune into this debate.

Rob> Sure.

Well, we saw obviously the first presidential debate mattered, a lot.

It was one of the most consequential presidential debates in history, because it essentially ended the candidacy of, the sitting president.

And it did so because so many people had eyes on it.

When we talk about whether debates matter, I think we're in a, we're in a shifting period of whether debates matter, because not just do people, did 67 million people watch it on debate night, but people watched clips of it over and over again on social media, every platform from X to Facebook to TikTok to Reels on Instagram.

And so there are these viral moments that each of these candidates take away.

They, you know, they don't just take...their candidate, their campaigns don't just take them away, but they shoot for them.

I mean, and, you know, an issue like abortion, which is a strong win for, Vice President Harris.

What she has said, we've seen video footage of it over and over again, on social media, just like we have with the former president and his riff on what's happening, allegedly to people's pets, but also, you know, on and, you know, for the former president also what he talked about on the economy.

So I think debates do matter.

And on the national stage, debates are going to matter more and more as people put more and more stock into what these, the digital impact of these things are.

Not just, not just traditional television, which also matters, too.

Meg> Yeah, it's not just those viral like, clips of video.

I mean, I went to bed at an embarrassingly late hour after the debate, because I had a lot of work to do, and it's hard to wind down, but it's just scrolling through my Instagram feed, all I saw, and this isn't just because it's like the accounts I follow.

It's like things that were just being promoted, memes and pictures and facial expressions and that split screen, you know, that is, it seems kind of maybe funny in the moment, but that is exactly what Rob's talking about, the kind of thing that's going to be resonating and recirculating.

And if we don't have another debate, that's all we're going to know from debates between Harris and Trump and, you know, there are a lot of young voters who might be interested to keep watching that.

Gavin> And that's that entryway into covering in depth state politics there.

Rob> Debate night is when rapid response teams are at their, are at their, are at their peaks.

And so the rapid response teams for both of these campaigns got clips out that will live on, online forever.

Gavin> Rob, I want to move a little bit more and talk about, how your previous boss, Nikki Haley... You're her comms director there.

She's still very visible after ending her campaign, her presidential bid there.

She spoke in primetime at the Republican National Convention.

She has a new high profile gig.

She is traveling the world.

She was just recently in Taiwan.

She just sat down with Face the Nation's Margaret Brennan over the weekend.

And she mentioned that she has not been deployed by the Trump campaign to go and campaign on his behalf.

Is that a mistake by the Trump campaign, not to use Nikki Haley?

Rob> You know, you'd have to ask the Trump campaign what their calculus is there.

Obviously, Governor Haley is a tremendously effective surrogate, wherever she goes, when she takes on an issue, when she takes on an issue or takes up a fight.

We've seen that for years.

But what we also have to concede is that she and former President Trump had a particularly, tough primary, and she made, she made some arguments about his fitness for office that would that may be tough to square, if you get back on the campaign trail and campaign for him, because they're going to be reporters covering those events that she does and asking her questions about how she squares those things.

I know that she's done that when she's made these appearances on Face the Nation.

But, you know, the question is, you know what... what swath of voters are you trying to win over?

And does she actually win those voters over?

And who were those Haley voters by the end of the campaign?

Who were running up some of those, some of those, margins against Donald Trump.

And if those were voters who were simply casting protest votes, they're already, their minds are already made up.

So, you know, I think it's an open question about whether it would be an effective strategy.

Meg> She...also just one thing, to piggy back on that.

She also said repeatedly during the Republican primary campaign that America's either going to end up with a President Nikki Haley or a President Kamala Harris.

Gavin> To call it.

Meg> Yeah, she said it over and over and over.

And clearly Nikki Haley is out of the campaign.

Kamala Harris is at the top of the Democratic ticket.

That doesn't necessarily, if you follow that argument along, mean huge support for Donald Trump in that head to head matchup.

So the Trump campaign is probably also remembering that, too.

Rob>...speaking of viral videos, I'm sure that's a viral video that would follow her to each of those events.

Thanks to the Kamala Harris,... social media effort.

Gavin> And I was going to say also it was probably saving her some face with her supporters because she is still getting blowback for endorsing him.

But, Meg, you've traveled a good bit with Senator JD Vance, Ohio senator there, who's the running mate for, President Trump, former president?

Is Vance helping or hurting the ticket?

From what we've seen so far, especially when you look at, you know, who could have been on that ticket and possibly Tim Scott, and maybe Nikki Haley.

But I was always doubtful, in my opinion.

But then you look at these big moments, you get the big endorsement by Taylor Swift for Kamala Harris, holding her cat in her Instagram post.

They're referencing the childless cat ladies that JD Vance has spoken about.

Then you also have Vance amplifying that, that false story about Haitian immigrants in Ohio, his state.

Is he helping or hurting at this point based on these things and others?

Meg> JD Vance was definitely promoted for this job of running mate by a lot of people, including Donald Trump Jr. And one of the things that he liked about JD Vance was his ability to make those kind of spicy arguments and to bring up topics that maybe Donald Trump necessarily isn't going to be talking about, although we did hear him talk about Springfield, Ohio, and a lot of the same things that Vance has been echoing there.

But, you know, they liked him because he is that kind of forceful sort of, you know, I don't really care what the reaction is.

I'm just going to go out and say it.

And, you know, when I've been along the campaign trail and talking to voters and seeing the reaction to him, there's a lot of support.

But it is kind of, I often wonder, you know, what if we were in a situation where there were someone who was more to the moderate end of the conservative spectrum, like some of those other people that you just mentioned, would that kind of balance out the Republican ticket?

Because that's definitely not what's happening with JD Vance as part of it.

It's, you know, he is he does consider himself to be a relatively new Republican, all things considered, he wasn't a backer of Donald Trump when Donald Trump first ran for president.

And he's talked about that and says he's explained it, but he is now very much in line with a lot of the topics and policy positions that Donald Trump has adopted as he's evolved from candidate to president now to candidate again.

And I haven't really heard from a lot of people who would be in that persuadable middle of voters who are like, yeah, JD Vance does it for me.

That's why I now consider myself to be a Donald Trump voter in this fall's election.

We got plenty of runway left, but I'm just, I'm not exactly sure if anybody who wasn't already decided that they were going to be supporting Donald Trump is won over by JD Vance now being on that ticket.

Gavin>And then when we look at that Taylor Swift endorsement, I mean, that came out Tuesday night, right after the debate, how big is that for the Harris campaign?

Meg> They're certainly very happy about it.

And it was a big moment that came when there were a lot of eyeballs among political watchers.

Anybody who stayed up for that debate all of a sudden when that Instagram post hit, you know, they were still up and paying attention.

But again, I don't know, similar to what I was just saying.

I don't know how many people are persuaded by that.

I mean, clearly, Taylor Swift is one of the biggest pop stars and celebrities on the planet right now.

I think she has more than 250 million followers on Instagram, which that's just a number, but it's a really big number.

But again, you know, it's something great for the Harris campaign, as Rob was saying, to be putting out on social media to be talking about and saying like, oh, look at the support that we are building.

But in terms of persuadable voters, I'm not exactly sure what it gets them, but it is a pretty cool thing for them to be able to be out there talking about in the next two months or so.

Gavin> Yeah, we've seen those voter registration numbers jump, too.

Meg> Absolutely, and that's, and that's real.

And...that's a metric that, you know, anybody would be proud of, I would hope just bringing in new voters and people who were interested in politics, wherever they end up landing on November 5th.

I mean, that's at least a good thing to say about what's happening.

Rob> You know, to talk about both running mates, you know, both Senator Vance and Governor Walz, it seems like, a little bit of the excitement has kind of stalled for both of them.

You know, Governor Walz was, you know, doing rallies with, with Vice President Harris, that first week, this first 2 or 3 weeks now.

This thing's going so fast and we haven't seen him do as much of the, as much of the solo surrogate work as we've seen Senator Vance do, and that's one of the things I think they chose Senator Vance, to be able to do because he has strong TV skills.

He is able to get out there and do more of the TV interviews than President Trump can do, wants to do or anything like that.

And he's able to bracket, the, you know, the other side in a way that perhaps President Trump isn't able to, and he's able to do it in a very disciplined way.

And plus he has a younger, fresher face.

And so I think that, you know, both Senator Vance and Governor Walz have some more potential to lead a surrogate charge for both, for both candidates.

And we'll have to see if they, more aggressively do that over the course of the next few weeks.

Gavin> Yeah, especially when we look at those swing states, which, of course, South Carolina is now.

We have North Carolina and we have Georgia below us.

But right here in South Carolina, we're a nice, Republican stronghold, which Republicans enjoy, they maintain.

But that being said, Maayan, when we look at down ballot races here, we're talking about Congress.

We're talking about 124 Statehouse seats.

We're also talking about 46 state Senate seats that are up for reelection.

A lot of those races have already kind of been decided based on the June primaries.

But is there anything that is going to shift, coming November 5th, when it comes to how we see the presidential ticket play out down here on these smaller races?

Maayan> This is obviously the topic that I'm most interested in because I look back, as y'all will recall, in 2020, when Democrats lost five seats in the House and the Senate, when Donald Trump was at the top of the ticket.

And as you both know, as you all three know, most voters hit that, you know, party button when they go vote and they leave the voting booth.

In 2020, Democrats lost two seats in the House and a whopping three seats in the Senate, which was huge.

And all three of those senators had been in the upper chamber for a long period of time, including a two time Democratic nominee for governor.

Now we are in a post redistricting phase, especially when it comes to the Senate.

Like you mentioned, the June primaries, we already are seeing the, the legislature tilt a bit more conservative.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the House.

There are some seats that Democrats feel like they should, of course, have won back in 2022 that they're hoping to win.

Republicans already have a super majority.

But the Senate, to me is really where the story is.

Drew McKissick, chairman of the state Republican Party.

We've heard Shane Massey, the majority leader in the Senate, for Republicans talk about how they feel like they have the momentum to flip even more seats in the Senate, which is...huge for Republicans.

And there are definitely some rural Democrats who are at risk, especially because of these district lines changing so significantly.

So, yes, even though we are a Republican controlled, have a Republican controlled legislature already, the reality is, is that this legislature is likely to tilt more conservative, but even, to get even more red because of what is occurring.

So we'll see.

Democrats, right now, are putting up a very big fight.

And I think especially with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, they feel a lot better in some of those maybe purplish areas in the state, but still, I mean, at the end of the day, it's who shows up with those two weeks of early voting.

And then of course, on Election Day.

Gavin> Yeah, like we said, we already saw a lot of that play out in the primaries with three of the Republican sister senators actually getting knocked off there, too.

So being replaced with more conservative folks.

And then you look over in the House and you've seen some folks who, were part of the House Freedom Caucus who maybe ran for Congress or had other issues have been knocked out, too.

So there'll be a reshuffling there, too.

So it will be interesting to see how the state House looks come January.

Rob,...any takeaways there when we talk about down ballot races here?

Rob> I think, I think, Maayan was exactly right.

I think we shouldn't underestimate the fundraising prowess of Speaker Smith, of Senator Massey.

And of Chairman McKissick.

The three of them have done well, particularly the legislative leaders, to put their members in position to do, to do, exactly what they need to do in the general election to potentially expand the majorities in both houses and, you know, we haven't seen, you know, we haven't seen that down ballot, you know, that down ballot momentum for Democrats, really, since 2008?

And so while I absolutely have seen, you know, the enthusiasm gap for Democrats to be closed, we didn't, we didn't see that enthusiasm when President Biden was on the top of the ticket.

It's going to be a really tall task for Democratic candidates to make a lot of headway, to make a lot of headway against some really well-funded, Republican, state House candidates Gavin> And a lot of that major money that's being raised by the Harris campaign is going towards more at risk states, at risk districts.

South Carolina doesn't really have that, especially, now that we're in this post redistricting era, too.

But, Rob, very quick, anything that you're watching leading up to Election Day that we should be watching for when it comes to the presidential campaign?

Rob> You know, whether...as far South Carolina goes or...?

Gavin> Nationally, I should say.

Rob> Nationally?

I mean, look, we've got two swing states that are incredibly important right on our border and their media markets spill into our, spill into our state, particularly North Carolina, in the upstate and in the Charlotte market.

We're going to see a lot of all four people on the tickets in North Carolina.

And that Charlotte market, is going to and we're going to see their television ads.

We're going to see their television ads.

We're going to see their messages.

We're going to see what matters.

And so I think we can be on the lookout for that.

It'll provide some excitement.

It'll provide some excitement for some of those, for some of those races up...in the, you know, the York County area.

It'll also provide some excitement for reporters who were able to go over and cover that stuff.

And, and I think we'll do that.

You know, and what we'll also see, but given the fact that this is an early primary state, is who from South Carolina, could potentially serve in a Trump administration, should there be another Trump administration and who in South Carolina could potentially serve in a Harris administration.

We...forget about that, but we play an incredibly important role on both sides.

You know, when it comes to presidential politics.

And that puts our, that puts our state at a, at a, at a disproportionately high number of people who are serving in that West Wing- Gavin> -and how we never, never stop here.

Meg, 30 seconds what you're watching here.

Meg> A lot of those things that Rob was just talking about, you know, but honestly, I mean, for me, I'm going to be spending a lot of time in those swing states that we're talking about in the Sunbelt states, but also the Rust Belt, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin.

So those are the places where the rubber really meets the road, because we were talking about, the numbers.

They are really tight.

They're probably going to be getting tighter and tighter.

And, you know, that's interesting for those of us who observe politics, not as much in South Carolina because as you just noted, we're pretty solidly in that red column in the Republican sense.

But it is going to be, I think, we always say it, it's a pivotal election, but I think this one is going to be really close.

And so I'll be watching for the margins in those states, not just those national polls that come out, but really in the state.

Gavin> And those polls are so tight.

They are even tighter after that debate.

So we'll be watching a lot of things with less than 60 days to go.

So Meg Kinnard with the Associated Press, Maayan Schechter of the South Carolina Public Radio, and Rob Godfrey, our communications consultant here on set.

Thank you all.

Thank you all for watching.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina.

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