Columbia, South Carolina
CNN
—
South Carolina Democrat Lynn Ramirez has a decent track record of picking her party’s eventual presidential nominee.
Though she backed former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg over President Joe Biden in the 2020 primary, the 64-year-old Simpsonville resident said she voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The next Democrat to win her vote needs to be capable of reaching everyday Americans — a coalition builder.
“I think South Carolina is looking for a person of the people, that can speak to the people without lowering and debasing themselves, like the current administration seems to be doing,” Ramirez, a retired public health worker, said during an interview at the state party’s Blue Palmetto Dinner on Friday. “Speak to hope and promise and prospects, as opposed to unfounded fears and divisiveness.”
The 2028 presidential primary is years away, but the Democratic Party’s leadership and messaging struggles are defining it now. As the party continues to grapple with what comes next, the Palmetto State is uniquely positioned to set the tone of the conversation.
For years South Carolina Democrats have played an outsize, and often decisive, role in presidential primaries, whittling down the field after the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. In 2028, depending on how the party organizes its calendar, South Carolina Democrats could be called on to serve a similar role, boosting the candidate they deem best suited to rebuild the party and win back the White House.
Until then, the state’s Democrats are in the same boat as the rest of the party: looking for strong leaders.
The state’s weekend of Democratic Party events — including a fundraising dinner, the state party convention and Rep. Jim Clyburn’s annual fish fry — come as party leaders in Washington have struggled to craft a message that resonates with voters. Polls show the party’s approval at generational lows, and strategists are still brainstorming ways to win back the parts of the base that shifted to President Donald Trump in 2024.
Top Democrats have moved to fill that leadership vacuum. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s appearances at events here this weekend follow weeks of early 2028-style jockeying, from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s recent New Hampshire trip to Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo saying they’re open to running.
Each potential Democratic presidential candidate comes with their own vision for how to lead the party out of the electoral wilderness and beat Trump’s eventual successor. The primary may be shaped by which vision resonates more with Palmetto State voters.
Over two days, Moore and Walz pitched South Carolina Democrats on where the party went wrong in 2024 and, more urgently, what the party needs to do to right in 2025 and beyond.
At the state party’s annual Blue Palmetto Dinner, Moore, the keynote speaker, made the case for urgency. He called on Democrats to stop being the party of panels and yearslong studies and instead become one of action. He pointed to Trump as an example of a politician who enacts his agenda with “impatience.”
“Donald Trump does not need a white paper to start arbitrary trade wars that will raise the costs on virtually everything in our lives,” Moore said Friday. “And so we must think about it this way — if he can do so much bad in such a small amount of time, why can’t we do such good?”
Walz, who addressed the state party convention Saturday morning, shared a similar message: Democrats must show they have the “guts” to fight for working-class voters. To do that, the party might benefit from following the president’s approach.
“What Trump learned from his first term to this one is: If you say you’re gonna get things done and actually do it, even if it’s not the right thing, people still give you credit for getting something done,” Walz, Democrats’ 2024 vice presidential nominee, said Saturday. “Think how powerful a tool that will be if we move with the same speed that he’s moving to give everybody health care.”
During the early days of Trump’s second term, Moore and Walz have fallen into two leadership camps among those named as possible presidential contenders. Moore, a first-term governor who is running for reelection next year, has focused on boosting Maryland and eschewing the resistance label in a way reminiscent of Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Walz, meanwhile, has taken on a fighting stance similar to Pritzker.
Asked which style he would prefer in a future presidential candidate, 74-year-old retired Army veteran Paul Brewer said: “All of the above.”
“It’s not just about how much money you can raise,” Brewer said. “It’s being positive and having a platform that everybody can buy into.”
While elected officials have argued Democrats need to show concrete examples of how they’ve improved people’s lives, voters here say Democrats need to show they can reach a wide audience.
“The winning message is taking care of the people of the country,” said Doris J. Potter Hickman, a Loris resident in her 70s who voted for the eventual winner of the 2008, 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in her state’s primary. “It’s time for the average and lower-income people to have an opportunity to participate within their own country and to receive the benefits of their own country.”
Ever since Democrats moved South Carolina into the early primary window in 2008, the state has played a key role in winnowing the field. In 2008, after Obama won the Iowa caucuses and Clinton won New Hampshire, the future president’s victory here helped propel his campaign against the former first lady.
Eight years later, Clinton’s win in the state highlighted independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ weakness with Black voters and moderates, which contributed to his eventual loss.
But never has South Carolina been as decisive as it was in 2020. After Biden managed to only come in fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire, his third presidential run seemed to be fading. But Clyburn’s endorsement, and Biden’s strong first-place finish in the state, quickly led to several candidates dropping out and endorsing the former vice president.
“We gave him the nomination,” said Carmen Quesada-Virella, an 80-year-old retired organizer with the National Education Association.
Quesada-Virella, who supported Biden in 2020 and Clinton in 2016, said she wants Democrats to develop a consistent message that responds to what people are going through in the country. She said she didn’t think Democrats would be able to work with Trump, and instead wants someone who could reach a broad coalition.
“What I don’t think we can have right now — or maybe ever — is someone who goes to the extremes, who can’t bring people in,” Quesada-Virella said at the palmetto dinner.
Roxanne Cordonier, a 65-year-old retired radio host and longtime Democratic activist from Greenville, said part of what sets South Carolina apart is the strong presence of Black voters, who have power within the party and “a deep sense of who is resonating.”
“I wasn’t a crazy Biden supporter but … when Clyburn said, ‘Let’s go for Biden,’ I was like ‘OK, we gotta win this thing,’” she said at the palmetto dinner. “There’s a lot of deep grassroots energy here that you need to pay attention to.”
Looking to the future, Cordonier rejected the notion that Democrats need to move to the center, and said instead the party needs an “issue-based” message with broad appeal.
“We have to form coalitions across party lines and across issue lines to form what we see as the strength of the movement,” she said. “If we just get the message out and let people listen to us, I think we can win.”
