Jaime Harrison

Harrison was born and raised in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He was raised by his mother, Patricia Harrison, and his grandparents. In 1994, he was selected to the United States Senate Youth Program. He attended Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School and received a scholarship to Yale University, where he majored in political science.

After graduating from Yale in 1998, Harrison worked as a teacher for a year at his former high school. In 1999, he was appointed chief operating officer of College Summit, a non-profit organization that helps low-income youth find a path to college and career. He earned his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center in 2004.

In May 2013, Harrison became the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party. He is the first African American to have served in this role.

Harrison declared his candidacy for chairperson of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in the February 2017 election. He defended his eight-year record at the Podesta Group, saying, "It's how I pay back the $160,000 of student loan debt." Harrison ended his bid for DNC chair on February 23, 2017, and endorsed Tom Perez.

In the third quarter of 2020, Harrison raised $57 million, the largest quarterly total by a U.S. Senate candidate ever, breaking Beto O'Rourke's record in the 2018 Texas election. He has also raised the most ever by a U.S. Senate candidate, beating another record set by O'Rourke.

Harrison filed paperwork on February 7, 2019, to challenge Senator Lindsey Graham by running for his seat in the U.S. Senate in the 2020 election. No Democrat has won a statewide election in South Carolina since 2006. Harrison launched his campaign on May 29, 2019. Harrison won the Democratic nomination unopposed on June 9, 2020.

Harrison and Graham participated in a debate with no audience that was hosted by Allen University on October 3, 2020. A debate originally scheduled for October 9 was changed to feature separate, televised interviews after Graham refused to be tested for COVID-19 preceding the scheduled debate.