BRACK: Red or blue? How will S.C. vote in the fall?

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  Improbable as it may seem, there’s a slim chance South Carolina could vote blue in November and send its nine electoral votes to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

There’s no way we could ever have written that sentence a year ago — heck, even two months ago.  But with the campaign of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in a political free fall of biblical proportions, anything seems possible as moderate Republicans and independents are finding it harder to stomach Trump’s hubris, arrogance and fear-mongering.

Trump certainly hasn’t helped himself by controlling his mouth, particularly with his barrage of attacks on a Muslim mother and father who lost their son in the Iraq war.  And he’s lost credibility among some party stalwarts by dilly-dallying over endorsements of U.S. Sen. John McCain or House Speaker Paul Ryan, both of whom have primary battles and both of whom endorsed and helped to legitimize Trump.

Trump’s self-centered, erratic campaign has national party leaders shaking in their Guccis, urgently calling for Trump to reboot his campaign and focus on the doughnut (Clinton) not the holes (everything else).

“The current race is which of these two is the more unacceptable, because right now neither of them is acceptable,” Trump supporter and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Washington Post last week.  “Trump is helping her to win by proving he is more unacceptable than she is.”

Or maybe America is just finally waking up to what Trump is all about (himself) and what could happen if Trump, who avoided the draft in the Vietnam War, gets his finger on the nuclear button.

Trump

A similar drama played out in the early 1950s with the quick rise of U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, a Wisconsin Republican whose zealous Communist witch hunt preyed on American fears.  It took four years before America, not as infected then by the constant buzz of ever-present media, woke up and rejected McCarthy’s cynical, hateful demagoguery.  Perhaps now in the age of Facebook and Twitter, America is starting to wake up to Trump’s bluster, weaknesses and lack of preparation for the highest office in the land.

In the last 14 presidential elections, South Carolina has voted for Democrats only twice — for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and for Jimmy Carter in 1976.  It’s a better bet this year that Clemson or South Carolina will become the next national football champions than Hillary Clinton will take South Carolina in November.

But there’s a pathway for Clinton if Trump’s mouth keeps spewing venom and pessimism about America’s future.  Just look at the numbers:

Clinton

In 2004, President George W. Bush shellacked John Kerry by getting 58 percent of 1.6 million votes cast in South Carolina.

In 2008 and 2012, Republicans won, but the margin dropped to about 54 percent as Democrats picked up an additional 200,000 voters overall while Republicans added an extra 100,000 voters.  More than 1.9 million votes were cast in both elections, with Democrats falling behind about 200,000 votes in each election.

For this election, that means if Democrats in South Carolina could flip 100,000 votes while mustering relatively high turnout numbers found in the last two elections, they could turn South Carolina blue in the presidential election.

But the 2008 and 2012 elections had something for Democrats that this year’s election doesn’t — a black standard bearer who motivated black voters to get to the polls.  If they don’t turn out for Clinton, it will be tough for her to take the Palmetto State.  But if women — especially those frightened by Trump’s belligerence — are for Clinton what blacks were for Obama, the Palmetto State contest could be closer than you’d think.

Add to the mix what happens if moderate Republicans and independents decide to sit out or vote for someone in another party, and then Clinton has a better chance of taking the state.

Impossible?  Not in times like these.  Improbable?  Probably, but who knows?

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