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      South Carolina Democrats, Stung by String of Losses, Clash Over Next Leader

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      A usually low-key race has taken on unusually high stakes as the party prepares to host the first primary of the 2024 campaign and seeks to reverse its recent misfortunes.COLUMBIA, S.C. — Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, a longtime kingmaker in Democratic politics who helped resurrect President Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, exercised his influence on Wednesday over a much smaller race far closer to home: the campaign to determine who will lead his state’s Democratic Party.Mr. Clyburn endorsed Christale Spain, a former party executive director who once worked in his South Carolina office and would be the first Black woman to lead the party if elected. His involvement underlines the larger-than-usual stakes of the three-candidate race, a contest that has often been a low-key, noncompetitive affair for a behind-the-scenes post.As Democrats in South Carolina recover from several damaging election cycles and stare down their debut as the party’s first presidential primary state, a once-in-a-generation campaign for state party chair has been brought to life, complete with the kind of glad-handing, fund-raising and mudslinging more often encountered in a congressional primary. At stake is who will prepare the party for the next election while staving off further down-ballot losses.The three candidates — the most in over 25 years — represent factions of the state’s Democratic base, from its grass-roots activists to high-powered operatives. Ms. Spain is widely viewed as the front-runner. But the same résumé that brought Mr. Clyburn to her camp has been fodder for some of her biggest critics, who say the party needs a major overhaul, not a return to the status quo they believe she would represent.More than 1,600 county delegates will vote for the chair at the end of the month at the annual state Democratic convention in Columbia. The winner, who will serve a two-year term, will be tasked with rebuilding an understaffed and underfunded state party while re-engaging key Democratic constituencies.The central question, however, is just what strategy the party will employ as it prepares for prime time.“We have an opportunity to stop the bleeding,” Ms. Spain said. “We could have this funding stream that comes in because of our new status. But if we muck it up, then what happens? Every cycle is a 2022 cycle? That’s our new normal forever? That’s the worst that can happen.”For many South Carolina Democrats, the 2022 midterm elections are burned in their memory, as party veterans lost a host of previously safe races from school boards to the State House, where Democrats ceded eight seats to Republicans — five of which had been held by Black women. The G.O.P. secured a supermajority for the first time since the Civil War era.“We have an opportunity to stop the bleeding,” Ms. Spain said.Sean Rayford for The New York TimesThe state party was too short on cash to support most of its candidates and did little to coordinate strategy with its nominee for governor, Joe Cunningham, who lost to the incumbent, Henry McMaster, by nearly 20 points. Paltry engagement with Black voters sank their turnout to the lowest in decades. Democratic officials largely faulted the party’s state leadership for the poor showing.“It was almost as if we just have lost our way, lost our direction,” said State Senator Vernon Jones, whose district covers five counties. “We don’t have the right message.”Against the backdrop of preparations for the 2024 primary, the newly prominent chair race has underscored Democrats’ competing messages for how to improve their standing in the state — via incremental steps to raise money and take back seats or through untested strategies the party has been reluctant to employ.Ms. Spain’s most formidable competitor is Brandon Upson, the chair of the state Democratic Party’s Black caucus, who is running as part of a four-person slate of candidates for party leadership posts. Catherine Fleming Bruce, an activist who fell short in the 2022 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, is also running.The candidates have spent months crisscrossing the state, stumping at county party meetings and recruiting surrogates. Some Democratic groups are exploring the possibility of hosting a debate. Ms. Spain distributes mailers with her campaign message at every stop she makes. Mr. Upson’s slate has established an account on the political donation website ActBlue for its fund-raising. His message to delegates is simple: I’m tired of losing.“The same people have been running our party and handpicking our party chair for 25 years,” Mr. Upson said. “And if you look at the trend line for this party over the 25 years, we’ve been losing more and more every cycle.”Brandon Upson, who is challenging Ms. Spain for the Democratic Party leadership role, at a labor protest outside a Ryder trucking warehouse in Columbia, S.C.Maya King/The New York TimesThe state’s more enthusiastic Democrats have been clamoring for a way to win back seats and put South Carolina in play in the same way that Georgia, its neighbor to the west, has been. Ms. Spain has cautioned fellow Democrats against overplaying their hand, even in the face of the money and attention that voting first in 2024 might bring. Those kinds of inroads are made over several cycles, she said, and will require newer, bolder — and realistic — thinking.“We have to be strategic and responsible about what we’re doing,” Ms. Spain said at a recent meeting of Orangeburg County Democrats. “We have to establish our battlefield.”That battlefield makes up all 46 of South Carolina’s counties and the voters whom Democrats have failed to mobilize. Her main focus, she said, will be on winning back the State House seats the party lost in previous cycles and protecting the remaining safe seats. Then they can talk about unseating Republicans.Much of Ms. Spain’s stump speech focuses on her experience. She started at the state party as a volunteer and worked for the last three state chairs. In 2016, she joined Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign team. After directing Cory Booker’s South Carolina operation in 2020, she coordinated Jaime Harrison’s U.S. Senate campaign with the state party. In 2022, she directed Black engagement for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The departing state party chair, Trav Robertson, is also supporting her bid.On the other hand, Mr. Upson is aiming to harness grass-roots groups, young voters and political newcomers — a constituency that has grown in the state in recent years. Under his leadership, the state party’s Black caucus has expanded its membership, putting a healthy number of delegates in his corner.“That’s where my base of support is,” he said. “You’re not going to see it in James Clyburn’s office.”On Tuesday morning, Mr. Upson joined more than three dozen labor activists protesting working conditions at a factory outside Columbia. After sweating and chanting in the sun outside a Ryder trucking warehouse, he encouraged the crowd to think of the Democratic Party as a partner in their activism, not a bystander.“We have to remind ourselves that we are the people — and we have the power in our hands,” he told the group.Mr. Upson, an Army veteran, has focused much of his organizing work on engaging Black male voters in low-income communities — a part of his biography that he has also promoted in his campaign. In 2020, he was national organizing director for Tom Steyer, whose presidential bid injected millions into South Carolina and frustrated the leaders backing Mr. Biden, who claimed the billionaire was buying Black support. Mr. Upson vehemently denies those claims.But it was Mr. Upson’s work with a candidate for Charleston County Council that agitated even more Democrats. In 2022, he worked with a Republican, Joe Boykin, who unseated a Democratic county councilwoman, Anna Johnson. Both Mr. Boykin and Mr. Upson maintain that Mr. Upson’s involvement was limited to building Mr. Boykin’s campaign website. Still, his victory handed the balance of power on the council to Republicans and cemented a line of attack for Ms. Spain’s supporters.Catherine Fleming Bruce, who fell short in the 2022 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, is running for the leadership post, as well.Meg Kinnard/Associated PressIn describing the state of the race, Mr. Clyburn paraphrased from the Bible: “They are not known by their words but their deeds.”“If somebody tells you they are a Democrat, and you look at what they’re doing and it’s all been to help Republicans, what am I supposed to believe about you?” he said.And for Ms. Spain, the messaging from her opponents echoes a familiar pattern she has observed in politics, of suspicions about qualified Black women in power. Or, worse, being brushed aside for opportunities with little reason.“Being a Black woman with a strong résumé for the role, people can turn that into a negative,” she said. “I’ve been doing the jobs that have been put in front of me. I’ve built the relationships that I’ve had an opportunity to build, not for any hidden agenda, but because I’m working with them.”Gilda Cobb-Hunter, an influential state lawmaker, is supporting Mr. Upson. She is encouraging delegates to pledge their allegiance to the candidate who, she said, is “not in the clique.”“This party has been run for too many years by cliques,” she said. “I want somebody who is interested in expanding the circle.”Ms. Cobb-Hunter, who is Black, recognized the historic implications of having a party led by a Black woman for the first time. However, she said, the determining factor in her decision came down to who she most believed could help Democrats in the state win elections again.“Politics, to me, is a business. It’s not personal. It’s about getting the job done,” she said. She later added, “Simply basing something on gender in and of itself is shortsighted, in my view.”Mr. Stephens, the state senator, announced at the Orangeburg County party meeting that after weeks of deliberation and conversations with all three candidates, he would support Ms. Spain. Fresh off a visit with Black Democrats in rural South Carolina, he said the next chair should be mindful of a shift he has observed in the electorate.“The citizens are taking things in their own hands,” he said. “They’re going to vet candidates. They’re no longer going to be told that ‘this is the individual you should be voting for.’ They are going to vote their conviction. South Carolina is changing.” More

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      Democrats Absorb Trump’s Indictment With Joy, Vindication and Anxiety

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      In some ways, it was the turn of events Democratic voters had dreamed of and some of the party’s lawmakers had long demanded: After years of telling lies, shattering norms, inciting a riot at the Capitol and being impeached twice, Donald J. Trump on Thursday became the first former president to face criminal charges.“We’ve been waiting for the dam to break for six years,” declared Carter Hudgins, 73, a retired professor from Charleston, S.C. “It should have happened a long time ago,” added his wife, Donna Hudgins, 71, a retired librarian.But as the gravity of the moment sank in, Democratic voters, party officials and activists across the country absorbed the news of Mr. Trump’s extraordinary indictment with a more complex set of reactions. Their feelings ranged from jubilation and vindication to anxieties about the substance of the case, concerns that it could heighten Mr. Trump’s standing in his party and fears that in such a polarized environment, Republicans would struggle to muster basic respect for the rule of law as the facts unfolded.“They are going to treat him as if he is Jesus Christ himself on a cross being persecuted,” said Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat from Dallas who worked as a criminal defense lawyer before she was elected to Congress last year. She blasted Republican arguments that the charges were politically motivated, saying, “We knew the type of person Trump was when he got elected the first time.”Mr. Trump, who polls show is the leading Republican contender for the 2024 presidential nomination, was indicted on Thursday by a special grand jury in connection with his role in hush-money payments to a porn star. He was charged with more than two dozen counts, though the specifics are not yet known.It is one in a swirl of investigations Mr. Trump faces, on a range of explosive matters including his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving office and whether he and his allies criminally interfered with the 2020 presidential election. He could face multiple other indictments.But the one this week, centered on a tawdry episode that predates Mr. Trump’s time in the White House, struck some Democrats as a sharp contrast in substance with the other possible charges against the former president. Some felt conflicted between their view that no one is above the law, while wondering if this particular case will be worth the chaos for the country, especially when there may be other, bigger targets.“He isn’t above the law and anyone who suggests otherwise is un-American,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic organization. “The question is, is it worth it for this crime?”Bernd Weber, right, in Littleton, N.H., on Thursday evening. “There were any number of things that he could have been indicted for, and this was probably the least of them,” he said of Mr. Trump. John Tully for The New York TimesIn Littleton, N.H., Bernd Weber, 65, a dentist, said he was glad the grand jury had voted to indict Mr. Trump, but he worried about the former president’s ability to “spin it to make it look like a witch hunt, and there are people that are buying that.”“There were any number of things that he could have been indicted for, and this was probably the least of them,” he said.Other Democrats made clear that while they welcomed this indictment, they believed Mr. Trump should be held accountable for far more.“No one is above the law,” Representative Barbara Lee, a liberal California lawmaker now running for Senate, wrote on Twitter. “Now do the rest of his crimes.”Jon Hurdle More

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      Republicans Face Setbacks in Push to Tighten Voting Laws on College Campuses

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      Party officials across the country have sought to erect more barriers for young voters, who tilt heavily Democratic, after several cycles in which their turnout surged.Alarmed over young people increasingly proving to be a force for Democrats at the ballot box, Republican lawmakers in a number of states have been trying to enact new obstacles to voting for college students.In Idaho, Republicans used their power monopoly this month to ban student ID cards as a form of voter identification.But so far this year, the new Idaho law is one of few successes for Republicans targeting young voters.Attempts to cordon off out-of-state students from voting in their campus towns or to roll back preregistration for teenagers have failed in New Hampshire and Virginia. Even in Texas, where 2019 legislation shuttered early voting sites on many college campuses, a new proposal that would eliminate all college polling places seems to have an uncertain future.“When these ideas are first floated, people are aghast,” said Chad Dunn, the co-founder and legal director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project. But he cautioned that the lawmakers who sponsor such bills tend to bring them back over and over again.“Then, six, eight, 10 years later, these terrible ideas become law,” he said.Turnout in recent cycles has surged for young voters, who were energized by issues like abortion, climate change and the Trump presidency.They voted in rising numbers during the midterms last year in Kansas and Michigan, which both had referendums about abortion. And college students, who had long paid little attention to elections, emerged as a crucial voting bloc in the 2018 midterms.But even with such gains, Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights program for the Brennan Center for Justice, said there was still progress to be made.“Their turnout is still far outpaced by their older counterparts,” Mr. Morales-Doyle said.Now, with the 2024 presidential election underway, the battle over young voters has heightened significance.Between the 2018 and 2022 elections in Idaho, registration jumped 66 percent among 18- and 19-year-old voters, the largest increase in the nation, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. The nonpartisan research organization, based at Tufts University, focuses on youth civic engagement.Gov. Brad Little of Idaho gave his approval to a law that bans student ID cards as a form of voter identification.Kyle Green/Associated PressOut of 17 states that generally require voter ID, Idaho will join Texas and only four others — North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee — that do not accept any student IDs, according to the Voting Rights Lab, a group that tracks legislation.Arizona and Wisconsin have rigid rules on student IDs that colleges and universities have struggled to meet, though some Wisconsin schools have been successful.Proponents of such restrictions often say they are needed to prevent voter fraud, even though instances of fraud are rare. Two lawsuits were filed in state and federal court shortly after Idaho’s Republican governor, Brad Little, signed the student ID prohibition into law on March 15. “The facts aren’t particularly persuasive if you’re just trying to get through all of these voter suppression bills,” Betsy McBride, the president of the League of Women Voters of Idaho, one of the plaintiffs in the state lawsuit, said before the bill’s signing.A fight over out-of-state students in New HampshireIn New Hampshire, which has one of the highest percentages in the nation of college students from out of state, G.O.P. lawmakers proposed a bill this year that would have barred voting access for those students, but it died in committee after failing to muster a single vote.Nearly 59 percent of students at traditional colleges in New Hampshire came from out of state in 2020, according to the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts.The University of New Hampshire had opposed the legislation, while students and other critics had raised questions about its constitutionality.The bill, which would have required students to show their in-state tuition statements when registering to vote, would have even hampered New Hampshire residents attending private schools like Dartmouth College, which doesn’t have an in-state rate, said McKenzie St. Germain, the campaign director for the New Hampshire Campaign for Voting Rights, a nonpartisan voting rights group.Sandra Panek, one of the sponsors of the bill that died, said she would like to bring it back if she can get bipartisan support. “We want to encourage our young people to vote,” said Ms. Panek, who regularly tweets about election conspiracy theories. But, she added, elections should be reflective of “those who reside in the New Hampshire towns and who ultimately bear the consequences of the election results.”A Texas ban on campus polling places has made little headwayIn Texas, the Republican lawmaker who introduced the bill to eliminate all polling places on college campuses this year, Carrie Isaac, cited safety concerns and worries about political violence.Voting advocates see a different motive.“This is just the latest in a long line of attacks on young people’s right to vote in Texas,” said Claudia Yoli Ferla, the executive director of MOVE Texas Action Fund, a nonpartisan group that seeks to empower younger voters.Students at the University of Texas at Austin lined up to cast their ballots on campus during the 2020 primary. A new proposal would eliminate all college polling places in the state.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesMs. Isaac has also introduced similar legislation to eliminate polling places at primary and secondary schools. In an interview, she mentioned the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers — an attack that was not connected to voting.“Emotions run very high,” Ms. Isaac said. “Poll workers have complained about increased threats to their lives. It’s just not conducive, I believe, to being around children of all ages.”The legislation has been referred to the House Elections Committee, but has yet to receive a hearing in the Legislature. Voting rights experts have expressed skepticism that the bill — one of dozens related to voting introduced for this session — would advance.G.O.P. voting restrictions flounder in other statesIn Virginia, one Republican failed in her effort to repeal a state law that lets teenagers register to vote starting at age 16 if they will turn 18 in time for a general election. Part of a broader package of proposed election restrictions, the bill had no traction in the G.O.P.-controlled House, where it died this year in committee after no discussion.And in Wyoming, concerns about making voting harder on older people appears to have inadvertently helped younger voters. A G.O.P. bill that would have banned most college IDs from being used as voter identification was narrowly defeated in the state House because it also would have banned Medicare and Medicaid insurance cards as proof of identity at the polls, a provision that Republican lawmakers worried could be onerous for older people.“In my mind, all we’re doing is kind of hurting students and old people,” Dan Zwonitzer, a Republican lawmaker who voted against the bill, said during a House debate in February.But some barriers are already in placeGeorgia has accepted student IDs only from public colleges and universities since 2006, so students at private institutions, including several historically Black colleges and universities, must use another form of identification.Georgia has accepted student IDs only from public colleges and universities since 2006, a rule that means students at private institutions, like several historically Black colleges and universities, must use another form of identification. Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesIn Ohio, which has for years not accepted student IDs for voting, Republicans in January approved a broader photo ID requirement that also bars students from using university account statements or utility bills for voting purposes, as they had in the past.The Idaho bill will take effect in January. Scott Herndon and Tina Lambert, the bill’s sponsors in the Senate and the House, did not respond to requests for comment, but Mr. Herndon said during a Feb. 24 session that student identification cards had lower vetting standards than those issued by the government.“It isn’t about voter fraud,” he said. “It’s just making sure that the people who show up to vote are who they say they are.”Republicans contended that nearly 99 percent of Idahoans had used their driver’s licenses to vote, but the bill’s opponents pointed out that not all students have driver’s licenses or passports — and that there is a cost associated with both.Mae Roos, a senior at Borah High School in Boise, testified against the bill at a Feb. 10 hearing.“When we’re taught from the very beginning, when we first start trying to participate, that voting is an expensive process, an arduous process, a process rife with barriers, we become disillusioned with that great dream of our democracy,” Ms. Roos said. “We start to believe that our voices are not valued.” More

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      In South Carolina, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott Appeal to the Same Donors, and the Same Voters

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      Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott, vying for Republican support for 2024 in their home state, attended a South Carolina conservative forum on Saturday.NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — At a conservative forum on Saturday, South Carolina Republicans had a common refrain about two home-state political figures who are eyeing the White House in 2024, former Gov. Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott.“I like them both.”It was the first time Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott had attended the same event during the 2024 campaign, in a key battleground state that fueled their political rise and that will play a critical role as they prepare to square off for the Republican nomination for president, one officially and the other unofficially so far.The two allies have largely steered clear of each other as they have staked out their respective lanes early in a presidential primary in which the specter of former President Donald J. Trump looms large. And while Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott might not be fighting each other, they will almost certainly be fighting for the same voters.At the forum on Saturday in North Charleston, both Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott received standing ovations as they entered and left the stage. Each one drew whoops and claps in response to points they made about the teaching of race in schools and problems with the Biden administration. And each one drew a small crowd on the side of the room to jostle for a closer photo, hug or handshake.“It’s going to be virtually impossible to take two from the same state, but that we know,” said Elizabeth Lyons, who moved to Charleston from Connecticut in 2021. Her husband, Michael, chimed in: “I’ll bet you either one or the other of them is going to be the vice-presidential candidate in 2024.”It remains unclear if either Ms. Haley or Mr. Scott — or both — will generate momentum beyond their in-state stardom. Their toughest task will be winning over Republicans eager for a Trump alternative, as well as a portion of the former president’s hyper-conservative base. The dynamic, some say, has the air of the 2016 G.O.P. primary, in which a crowded field cleared a path for Mr. Trump to win.“They’re both very popular with Republicans in South Carolina,” said Chip Felkel, a veteran South Carolina political consultant who said he is remaining neutral in the primary. “The question is, does their popularity exceed that of the former president?”Many of those at the forum said they were still undecided as to whom they would nominate for president in 2024. Mary Catherine Landers, 63, was among them. A lifelong Republican voter who moved to Charleston from Indiana in 2018, Ms. Landers supported Mr. Trump in 2020. But she said she feared some conservatives would stay home if he were nominated again, and that Ms. Haley was the draw for her on Saturday.“I’m excited about both,” Ms. Landers said, though she added, “I think personally the one who would have the better chance at this point in time is going to be Nikki.”Nikki Haley spoke on Saturday at the same conservative forum in South Carolina that Mr. Scott also attended. Logan Cyrus/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMs. Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, launched her campaign for president in February. Mr. Scott, the junior senator from South Carolina, has yet to formally declare his candidacy, but he is widely expected to make a decision in the next few weeks.South Carolina is home to a varied conservative electorate — Libertarian-leaning Lowcountry voters, establishment insiders around Columbia’s State Capitol, staunch conservatives along its eastern coast upstate to the North Carolina border. How Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott ultimately fare in South Carolina will be decided at county party picnics, on the debate stage and, perhaps most importantly, at smaller platforms like the Saturday forum.The event drew a couple hundred of the party’s most faithful Christian conservative voters and activists to a convention center in North Charleston. Speakers stoked anxieties about social issues like abortion and transgender students, railing against what they saw as existential dangers that the next party nominee will be tasked with righting: China’s ascendance on the world stage, the war in Ukraine and ongoing economic uncertainty.An open question is whether the governor of a state to the south, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, will draw a large network of support. The governor has closely trailed Mr. Trump in polling and has amassed a fund-raising haul of more than $100 million.Jerry Dorchuck, a Florida-based pollster who has conducted polling for candidates in South Carolina, said the results of his polls in the state have followed a national trend: Mr. Trump still commands nearly half the Republican vote, followed closely by Mr. DeSantis. In South Carolina, both Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott have roughly equal support, floating at or below 10 percent.Right now, Mr. Dorchuck said, “It’s Trump’s race to lose, DeSantis’s race to win.”Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott benefit from household-name status in the state. Mr. Scott got his political start on Charleston’s City Council and is the only Black lawmaker to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Ms. Haley served for six years as a state representative in a district just outside Columbia before winning the governorship after a tough campaign in 2011. In fact, it was Ms. Haley who appointed Mr. Scott to his current Senate seat in 2012.Their campaigns — one established and one still under construction — have split some allegiances among the Palmetto State’s political class, albeit amicably. A handful of donors have given to both operations. A few, though, are waiting for their candidates of choice to enter the race.Chad Walldorf, a Charleston-area business owner and G.O.P. donor who has been a close ally of both Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott, said he would ultimately support Mr. Scott in a potential presidential bid.“It’s a difficult choice that I think many South Carolina Republicans are going to have to figure out in the coming months ahead, assuming that Tim does enter the race,” he said.Support for Ms. Haley and Mr. Trump has been mixed among South Carolina elected officials, with several waiting to take sides. Representatives Russell Fry, Will Timmons and Joe Wilson are on the former president’s leadership team in the state, as is Senator Lindsey Graham. Representative Ralph Norman has thrown his support behind Ms. Haley.Ms. Haley’s allies said that because she served in Mr. Trump’s administration, she could bring the knowledge of the former president’s policy goals without the bombast that turned off moderate conservatives. She has also won a handful of tough races, namely her run for governor.Mr. Scott, on the other hand, has not run in tough statewide races. His proponents have praised his conservative messaging that has often been overwhelmingly positive and peppered with Bible verses. And, if he does run, he will enter the race with more than $20 million already in the bank.Attendees at the conservative forum cheered as Mr. Scott spoke.Win McNamee/Getty ImagesBut with Mr. Scott not yet a declared candidate and Ms. Haley still building national momentum, some Republican leaders and strategists warn that both of them could crowd the field and clear a path for Mr. Trump to win the state.“Are they splitting the vote? Yeah, they certainly are,” said Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party who is supporting Ms. Haley. “Are they going to take any from Donald Trump? I don’t know yet.”Mr. Trump still commands a majority share of support among Republican voters in South Carolina. He did not attend Saturday’s event, though he was invited. Neither did Mr. DeSantis, who was also invited. Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who is still mulling a possible presidential bid and who attended the forum, told reporters on Saturday that the presence of Mr. Scott and Ms. Haley created “a little bit of a complicated arena.”Mr. Scott has been on a weekslong listening tour through early primary states, namely Iowa and South Carolina. Outside of the requisite engagements with voters and donors, Mr. Scott has paid particular attention to faith leaders and has held a handful of listening sessions with pastors. Ms. Haley, whose campaign has boasted that she has made nearly 20 campaign stops in the month she has been a candidate, plans to visit New Hampshire later in March.Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott are two Republicans of color in an overwhelmingly white party. Each one has used that distinction to flatten Democratic criticisms of systemic racism in America and to argue that the country remains a beacon of progress and opportunity.“America’s not racist, we’re blessed,” Ms. Haley said, a message she has emphasized repeatedly.Mr. Dawson, the former chairman of the state  Republican Party who is supporting Ms. Haley, offered another scenario. Instead of cannibalizing each other’s voters, Ms. Haley and Mr. Scott, he said, could consolidate their resources if one of them were to suspend their presidential bid to support the other. Such a move could strengthen one contender’s odds against a higher-polling candidate, such as Mr. Trump or Mr. DeSantis.“You team those two up on something, you got a problem,” Mr. Dawson said. “Because they like each other.” More

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      Alex Murdaugh’s brother gives first interview since trial: ‘He knows more’

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      Alex Murdaugh’s brother gives first interview since trial: ‘He knows more’In New York Times interview, Randy Murdaugh says he remains unsure if his brother murdered son and wife in South CarolinaAlex Murdaugh, the disgraced South Carolina lawyer found guilty of murdering his wife and son, has long been a thief and liar – but his being a convicted killer is still a shock, his brother has said in the first interview a member of the family has given since the trial.In an interview with the New York Times, Randy Murdaugh said he remained unsure if Alex murdered his son and wife in June 2021. Randy Murdaugh added that while he respects the jury’s verdict, he has known Alex as a protective father and husband.Murder and mystery in the south: how the Murdaugh trial gripped AmericaRead more“He knows more than what he’s saying,” said Randy Murdaugh, referring to Alex’s lying about the murder. “He’s not telling the truth, in my opinion, about everything there.”Randy, Alex’s older brother, said in the interview that the pair were not close, despite going to the same college and law school, and working at the family’s law firm together.“It’s not like there was some problem with our relationship, necessarily,” Randy Murdaugh said. “We just really weren’t alike, so we didn’t do stuff together.”Weeks after the murder, Randy Murdaugh said that much of the family rallied around Alex, who suggested the killing of his 22-year-old son Paul was due to Paul’s involvement in a fatal 2019 boating accident. Maggie Murdaugh, Alex’s wife, was shot dead alongside Paul.Months after the murders, Randy confronted Alex about financial records that showed Alex had embezzled millions from the family business. In an emotional conversation, Randy recalled, Alex admitted to stealing, and to a severe addiction to painkillers.Alex promised never to lie to Randy again, Randy said, but soon broke that pledge. A day later, Alex told police and Randy that he had been shot on the side of the road by an unknown person.Police later said Alex Murdaugh had arranged to have someone else shoot him, in the hopes that his surviving son Buster could collect his life insurance money.Randy soon stopped speaking with Alex, who has been charged with stealing more than $8m from the family firm. The pair have not spoken in almost a year.But in July last year, when Alex was arrested over the murder of his wife and son, Randy re-examined aspects of what he knew about his younger brother.Randy Murdaugh told the newspaper that the family has dealt with similar uncertainty, given the gruesome nature of the crime and the previous understanding they had of Alex.“The not knowing,” Randy Murdaugh said, “is the worst thing there is.”Randy Murdaugh’s interview stands in sharp contrast from statements given by Alex’s defense lawyers, who have said that the Murdaugh family fully believes he did not murder anyone. His lawyers also said the family supports him.On Friday, Alex Murdaugh was given two sentences of life imprisonment after being found guilty of the murders of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh. The sentences capped a six-week, televised trial in which Alex maintained his innocence, though that was undermined by cellphone video captured by his son that placed him at the scene of the murders shortly before they occurred.Randy said the Murdaugh family is focused on supporting Buster, who has lost his immediate family. Randy said his life has attracted international attention given his brother’s crimes.Randy told the New York Times he hoped the trial would give him some closure and an answer about the circumstances around the death of his nephew and sister-in-law, but he said he has not stopped thinking about it.“I hoped that after the trial, because there’s nothing more that can be presented, that I’d stop thinking about this,” Randy Murdaugh said. “But so far, that has not been the case.”TopicsAlex MurdaughUS politicsSouth CarolinaUS crimeLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

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      Obama praises woman who popularized ‘fired up’ chant during 2008 campaign

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      Obama praises woman who popularized ‘fired up’ chant during 2008 campaignFormer president releases video tribute for Edith Childs, South Carolina county councillor who is retiring after 24 yearsMarking the retirement of the woman credited with popularizing the chant “Fired up, ready to go!” that epitomized his campaigns, Barack Obama said her energy played a key role in lifting his spirits and his candidacy for president first time round.“It was early in my campaign, and I wasn’t doing that good,” Obama recalled in a video provided by the Obama Foundation, harking back to a 2007 campaign stop in Greenwood, South Carolina, on a dreary, rainy day.But the small crowd, Obama said, was transformed as Edith Childs led them in the rousing back-and-forth chant: “Fired up, ready to go!”“Leadership and power and inspiration can come from anywhere,” Obama said in the video to mark Childs’ retirement after 24 years on the Greenwood county council.“It just has to do with spirit, and nobody embodied that better than Edith.”“Fired up, ready to go!” swiftly became part of the Obama campaign’s ethos, manifested in T-shirts, signs and bumper stickers.This week, Childs told the AP she came to know the “fired up” chant from its use decades ago, the words energizing participants during National Association for the Advancement of Colored People voter registration drives.“Once we sang that song, it reminded us that, no matter what, we have to remain fired up and ready to go, and be prepared for whatever confronts you,” she said.Childs attended several events with the Obama family at the White House during his presidency, led delegates in the chant during the 2012 Democratic convention and sat with Michelle Obama at her husband’s final State of the Union address in 2016.The chant has become ingrained in South Carolina Democratic politics. Politicians, including state senator Marlon Kimpson, use it to amp up crowds across the state.In 2020, it was adopted by billionaire businessman Tom Steyer, who ran a TV ad in South Carolina and other early-voting states featuring Childs’ endorsement of his presidential campaign.Looking ahead to the 2024 campaign – and South Carolina’s new first-in-the-nation Democratic primary – Childs said she was open to connect with candidates who might seek her support, although she she wanted Democrats to be clearer about showcasing the party’s accomplishments.“When you’re fired up about something, you put more into it,” she said. “We’re going in the right direction, but we need to be more vigilant about what we’re doing.”TopicsBarack ObamaDemocratsUS politicsSouth CarolinanewsReuse this content More

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      Haley Walks Treacherous Road for G.O.P. Women

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      EXETER, N.H. — According to Nikki Haley, bullies are best subdued by a counter kick — in heels. Achieving a new vision for the country requires the leadership of a “tough-as-nails woman.” And generational change starts with putting a “badass woman in the White House.”In ways both overt and subtle, Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina governor, is setting up her 2024 presidential bid as the latest test of the Republican Party’s attitudes about female leaders. No woman has ever won a state Republican presidential primary, let alone the party’s nomination — and Ms. Haley is the first one to mount a bid since former President Donald J. Trump, who regularly attacked women in extraordinarily graphic and vulgar terms, rose to the head of the party.The early days of Ms. Haley’s campaign, which she announced on Tuesday, quickly illustrated the challenges facing Republican women. For decades, female leaders in both parties have struggled with what political scientists call the double bind — the difficulty of proving one’s strength and competence, while meeting voters’ expectations of warmth, or of being “likable enough,” as former President Barack Obama once said of Hillary Clinton during a 2008 primary debate.But for Republican women, that double bind comes with a twist. There are conservative voters who harbor traditional views about femininity while expecting their candidates to seem “tough.” Several strategists suggested Republican primary voters would have little patience if a female candidate were to level accusations of sexism toward another Republican. And Mr. Trump, who remains a powerful figure in the party and is running again, has already attacked Ms. Haley with criticism some view as gendered.Strategists say Ms. Haley must try to win over conservatives who have traditional views of femininity but also expect candidates to appear tough.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesEven before she entered the race, Mr. Trump dismissed Ms. Haley as “overly ambitious,” which struck some observers as sexist. And soon after her official announcement, he suggested her appointment as U.N. ambassador was less a reflection of her credentials than of his desire to see her male lieutenant governor take over as governor. She also confronted a male CNN anchor, who asserted that Ms. Haley and women her age — 51, decades younger than Mr. Trump or President Biden — were past their “prime.”Ms. Haley, who could be joined by other female contenders, including Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, is operating within a G.O.P. that has often dismissed debate about identity as the purview of the left, and has, in many corners, increasingly lambasted discussions of gender and race as “wokeness.”During her campaign trail debut this past week, Ms. Haley played into this trend, promoting a country that is “strong and proud, not weak and woke.” And while she winked at the history-making potential of her candidacy — “I will simply say this: May the best woman win” — she was quick to distance herself from “identity politics.”“I don’t believe in that. And I don’t believe in glass ceilings, either. I believe in creating a country where anyone can do anything,” she said Wednesday while campaigning in Charleston, S.C.Ms. Haley faces many hurdles that have nothing to do with gender. Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is generally seen as Mr. Trump’s strongest potential adversary, lead her significantly in early polling. And her occasional criticisms of Mr. Trump, after serving in his administration and often heaping praise on him, may leave her ill-defined in the eyes of voters.Many prominent women in the party — including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — have risen by emulating Mr. Trump’s hard-right politics.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMany of the most prominent women in the party — Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a conspiracy theory-minded Republican from Georgia; Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee; Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the chair of the House Republican conference — have risen by emulating or embracing Mr. Trump’s hard-right politics, not by challenging him.“If you want to know, what do you have to do to be an influential woman in the G.O.P. today, compare Marjorie Taylor Greene to Liz Cheney,” said Jennifer Horn, the former chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party who now considers herself an independent. “Which one of them actually brings gravitas and experience and genuine commitment to democracy to the table? And which one of them is currently serving in Congress?”Which Republicans Are Eyeing the 2024 Presidential Election?Card 1 of 6The G.O.P. primary begins. More

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      Tim Scott Weighs 2024 Run, Selling Unity to a Party Eager for a Fight

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      Mr. Scott, the only Black Republican senator, has many political assets. What he lacks is an obvious ability to win over voters who have embraced a Trumpian brand of us-versus-them divisiveness.CHARLESTON, S.C. — Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, openly eyeing a pathbreaking run for the Republican presidential nomination, came home Thursday night to the city that started the Civil War to test out themes of unity and forgiveness aimed at the current war in his party — and the divisions roiling the nation at large.The ultimate question is whether Republican voters who embraced Donald J. Trump’s brand of us-versus-them divisiveness are ready for the themes that Mr. Scott is selling.His speech Thursday to the Charleston County Republican Party could have been the kind of routine dinner address that all elected officials give, this one honoring Black History Month at a local college. But the television crews and reporters piled on to the risers at The Citadel military college’s alumni center were there to watch what amounted to a soft opening for a White House run by Mr. Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate. And it came only a day after a festive kickoff event for the presidential campaign of Mr. Scott’s friend, political benefactor and fellow South Carolinian, Nikki Haley.“If you want to understand America, you need to start in Charleston; you need to understand and appreciate the devastation brought upon African Americans,” Mr. Scott counseled. “But if you stop at our original sin, you have not started the story of America, because the story of America is not defined by our original sin. The story of America is defined by our redemption.”Mr. Scott has obvious political assets to bring to a potentially crowded field: a message of optimism, a disposition that has made him personally popular even with his political opponents, and the historic nature of his potential nomination.But those assets could prove to be a liability in today’s Republican primary environment, where voters rail against what they see as unfair favoritism toward people of color and where activists may be more interested in anger than optimism. Even in his home state, the third in the Republican nomination process, it is not clear that his political approach is preferable to those of the two pugnacious Floridians expected to compete for the party’s standard, Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis.“I don’t see a path for Tim,” said Chip Felkel, a longtime Republican consultant in South Carolina and a critic of Mr. Trump. He said of the mood in the party, “We don’t have a lot of Republicans ready to sing ‘Kumbaya.’”Mr. Scott appears to understand that race is a major political issue at this fraught moment when the loudest voices in his party are disputing how Black history is taught, race consciousness and the once widely accepted notion that diversity should be a goal, not just happenstance. His own Senate record includes legislation to make lynching a federal hate crime and a major push for police reforms in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.Mr. Scott with a young attendee after she gave him an introduction at the dinner. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesSo Mr. Scott has been approaching the issue from both sides, acknowledging the racism that confined his grandparents to the impoverished corners of the Jim Crow South and that still sends him routinely to the shoulders of the road for traffic stops. But he also says, invariably with a smile, that the nation is not racist. “There is a way for us to unify this country around basic principles that lead us forward and not backward, but we have to quit buying the lie that this is the worst time in American history,” he said on Thursday. “Only if American history started today can that be true.”Which Republicans Are Eyeing the 2024 Presidential Election?Card 1 of 6The G.O.P. primary begins. More