In this episode, Grace interviews Kathryne Harvey, the Chair of the Spartanburg Democratic Party. Spartanburg is one of the fastest-growing areas of the state with high investment levels. Harvey details her focus on local issues such as healthcare, economic development, and sensible growth that benefits the long-standing community. Harvey emphasizes the importance of elevating Democratic voices in the local political discourse of a highly Republican-dominated landscape and a focused approach on issues-based rather than a party-based strategy.

00:00 Introduction to Frogmore Stew

00:00 Meet Kathryn Harvey: Chair of the Spartanburg Democratic Party

01:15 Understanding Spartanburg County's Political Landscape

02:35 The Impact of Gerrymandering on Spartanburg County

03:28 Strategies for Engaging Voters and Building Candidates

04:41 The Role of Women and Moderates in Spartanburg Politics

05:38 Building Cross-Party Coalitions Around Issues

06:50 The Challenge of Representing Democrats in a Predominantly Red State

07:38 The Importance of Local Issues in Spartanburg County

07:59 The Influence of National Politics on Local Elections

09:02 The Role of the Democratic Party in Spartanburg's Growth

10:00 The Impact of Voter Turnout on Local Elections

11:47 The Challenge of Engaging with Voters Year-Round

13:54 The Importance of Running Democratic Candidates in Republican Dominated Districts

21:28 The Role of Religion in Spartanburg County Politics

23:47 The Long Game: Building a Democratic Presence in Spartanburg County

27:13 Conclusion and Farewell

27:37 Credits

Copyright 2024 Grace Cowan

• The Poets of Rhythm - "South Carolina

Hi, it's Grace, and this is Frogmore Stew.

Spartanburg County has a population of just over 345, 000 people. It's 51 percent female, 73 percent white. And 20 percent black 12 percent of its residents don't have health insurance and 14 percent fall at or below the poverty line. Kathryn Harvey is the current chair of the Spartanburg Democratic Party.

She's a native of Spartanburg and after a 20 year stint working in marketing and advertising in the big cities, New York and LA. She came home to Spartanburg to start her own marketing group called New South. She's also launched a membership platform called Spartanburg Gives, an organization that builds partnerships of existing nonprofits to help elevate their work and connect them to the people of the community.

She took on the leadership role within the Democratic Party because she recognized that the state party needed some help. She knows how to build partnerships, inspire younger voters through grassroots efforts and strategic marketing. and intimately understands the Democrats effort is a long game.

Spartanburg County encompasses the cities of Campobello, Chesnee, Cowpens, Duncan, Greer, Inman, Landrum, Lyman, Pacolet, Reidville, Spartanburg, Wellford, and Woodruff. It has eight state house seats, districts 31 through 38, And one state Senate district of those districts. Only one is a Democrat district. And in the last election of twenty twenty-two, none of the state seats had competition in the general election, including the Democrat district today.

We'll talk to Kathryn about those districts. About the upcoming election in which every state house and state Senate seat is up for reelection about what the party is doing to combat dem donor and voter frustration. The actual issues are that directly affect the people of Spartanburg county. And how the national politics of Trump, Haley, and Biden are affecting her district.

Hi, Kathryn. Welcome to Frogmore Stew. Hi, Grace. Thanks for having me. Kathryn, in the state Senate, you have Josh Kimbrell, who is a very conservative, former Christian Talk radio host. He won with 55 percent of the vote and did not have an opponent. And then you have state house districts 31 through 38.

One of those is the Dem district. And all of those had no competition in the last election and many of them in the last five elections. We've talked a lot on Frogmore Stew about how the districts have been maneuvered and manipulated and gerrymandered and your county is a guaranteed seat once the primary is over.

Um, do you believe that the districts are fairly drawn?

No, I don't think the districts are fairly drawn. You know, I think we're the product of gerrymandering like most areas of South Carolina. We saw Josh Kimbrell unseat Senator Reese and then go through a cycle. And gerrymander his district. It's why we have these 80 percent red districts up here.

And it's really, it's incredibly problematic in our state. And it makes it tough for candidates to even consider some of those districts. I think for South Carolina and speaking with other areas like ours, there's certainly conversation about how we're maneuvering with that hill to climb up.

So, Kathryn, how do you, in that scenario, go and dig up candidates and say, Hey, can you run in this district that's 80 percent red?

In that scenario, we might not prioritize that district. We are starting from the ground level here. Um, we did not have a single contested race in 2022. So there has been a concentrated effort to identify priority districts where we do see a path forward. And that still looks like a bit of a hill to climb in some scenarios, but a lot of that candidate identification comes from.

Um, working with advisors who have relationships with different factions in our community. It's being out and understanding current leadership that will make good candidates. Working with our local politicians to think through what a pipeline would look like in other districts. And I think most importantly, um, it's really using the relationships, not just that the local party has, but we've got to be using our social capital.

Where are we plugged in this community where we can sit down? And say, you know, this person really possesses the leadership skills that are needed to be a good candidate for this particular area. And what we have going into this year that I think is a bonus, every district is a majority female. We've got issues on the table that affect women more than ever before.

And we've got folks that are really just beleaguered by the Republican Party. I mean, we have so many people that are feeling disenfranchised on the other side of this. Where can we identify? A good candidate, it can meet people in a moderate way and really have conversations about what they care about instead of coming out of the gate with a capital D Democrat.

How do you take party allegiance away and go issue based to that group of people who are used to voting for Republicans, but say, look what you're aligned with your values, your goals. Your most important issues aren't really being represented by this guy and they will be with our guy.

I think in general, we have seen cross party coalitions building around specific issues outside of the candidate.

So it's being able to utilize the relationships within those areas to help develop rapports and pathways with our more moderate Republicans, and quite frankly, just be able to have conversations. So some of that from a leadership standpoint is making sure I'm in those rooms, able to have those conversations, and then I'm subsequently inviting those conversations into our space as well.

And then it's really building a path into the specific districts where our candidates can really engage. And it's not about party at that point, it's really about issues. So, for candidates being able to take that directive, that's going to be critical for building trust, and it's not even going to necessarily be a counterattack.

This is an opportunity to hold our elected officials accountable on the other side, but people need a chance to hear and to be heard about what's impacting them. The most that I think again, that's part of this long game, but people much more willing around here to at least broach that.

And to be clear, you're not running a candidate that is the equivalent of a Democrat candidate in New York City or San Francisco.

This is South Carolina and crats like we don't have a large population. of really far left Democrats.

And I think that even if ideologically there were some areas where a candidate maybe sat in that space, what we're talking about with voters does not inherently mimic that style, right? I really think it's just bringing it down to the top three or four issues that are really impacting folks in Spartanburg County.

And if candidates can stay on that path, I think it bodes well to bridge into the community. We're talking about the infrastructure that's popping up in somebody's backyard and that they're struggling with health care for their elderly parents and their children. It's really just those issues that hit home, moderate folks, business minded folks, like all of that lines up for good candidates around here.

And we're very conscious of that.

Uh, we've talked on this podcast a little bit in the past about the difference between an upstate Republican and a Charleston Republican. I love to use the Rhett Butler line that Charleston is excellent manners, questionable morals. We're a little bit more liberal down here, even our Republicans.

And so are you finding that you can go to the moderate Republicans, if there are any in Spartanburg and say, Look, here's what we're doing as a party and this really is inclusive of a lot of the things that moderates believe in.

So the coalition building around issues has been successful for us as a local party instead of just going out as like big D Democrats.

I think inherently the Democratic Party from the national level down is dealing with a significant brand issue. And so it felt like for our leadership team. How can we be using our social capital and bridging across communities to really talk about what's impacting Spartanburg locally? And I think a lot of that is actually in the building block stages right now.

So just from a roadmap standpoint, one was like, okay, we have to keep the lights on. Two was like, we have to build infrastructure now that we can keep the lights on. Three is we're running candidates and building into this grassroots engagement with voters. And we found the issues part of it to be more approachable, certainly in the upstate.

But I think this moment to build a coalition that has a range of voices who are lifting up this local party is actually something that can be accomplished.

It was at 2018, the Jamie Harrison race, the party was really focused on the federal level politics. There was so much money raised around Jamie Harrison's race.

And then even in twenty twenty-two, there was so much money focused on Annie Andrews race against Nancy Mace. And with the new party chair, Crystal Spain, the focus has now gone back to grassroots state races, much more intent on individual district issues rather than the big picture.

You hit the nail on the head, and I think why you're seeing the leadership of your county chairs coalesce, new leadership, has been a lift for all of us.

She and I both understand that we're in this for the long game together, but I think it's been a much more strategic focus on that regional area, and that goes into what you well know. The Greenville and, and Spartanburg County Democratic Parties have been really working in lockstep together for two years now.

The whole state is, is paying attention to that. What we've been able to build in terms of the sharing of resources, knowledge, candidate pipeline support, et cetera, is really what we're hoping is a model that, that can be carried forward into other regions that coalesced to begin with really around issues.

That's where people are willing. I think to meet us more than just the politics of it all. And I think it's also showing incremental movement. In my perfect world, Grace, I wanted to have half a dozen candidates running against. Republican held seats, I might have two, three, and people are paying attention, but any movement right now is being viewed as positive.

It feels too like the Republican side, they are on the ground all year, all the time, pushing their narrative. DeMint. It's where Ellen Weaver came from. And so. They really have all year, all the time narrative going, and I don't feel like the Dems have had that in a long time, so is that part of the plan too, is to make sure to engage with voters all year round, not just right before the political season?

Absolutely. And I think that's a great point. There has been a systematic, strategic approach by the Republican Party that is so incredibly organized. They have built a machine and it is working. We can be learning from that. That's where that infrastructure piece comes in. We have got to be able to organize folks and have them stay with us year round.

to continue to do this work on a grassroots level, quite frankly, and then it's also the managing of expectations of what exists in this state and the party that we are constantly in opposition with. And I say the party because when I took this role on two years ago, I vowed that I was not going to be calling out an entire faction of people.

We're going to hold elected officials. We are going to call out the South Carolina GOP, but I'm not sitting here and othering everybody that identifies as a Republican because that's how we got here. And we can't get out of this unless we're able to build bridges across the aisle as well.

I feel like outside of South Carolina, people look at our state and say, That is a deep red state.

There is no way that state could ever be purple. There's no way that state could ever even border on blue. But the reality is the last election between Trump and Biden, the difference was about 300, 000 people. If you look at all of the people that didn't vote, that are eligible to vote, many of those, I think are people who the democratic party has stopped talking to.

And I think we are not talking to large groups of voters. Yeah. And that is damaging in a significant way. And I know that's a big part of the organizing and infrastructure that's being built in Columbia. For us, the city of Spartanburg is still minority majority. We actually have, I think, one of the few minority.

Majority city councils and majority female city councils. So, it's a blue dot and a bit of a red C. We're also a seven college town, and we have never engaged with our students well. We chartered the Young Democrats of Spartanburg County a year ago, and they've been working their tails off because there's just this faction of young Dems that I don't think anybody's really addressing around here on either side of the coin.

And they're the ones who, like, inherently have grown up through an Obama administration and through a Trump administration, and they don’t know anything different.

I know that because we have the incumbent, typically parties don't do a big primary for the presidential election. The Republicans didn't do it in twenty twenty. We did it this year because it was our first year as first in the nation. The turnout was low, about 130, 000 voters.

In my opinion, I feel like that's actually pretty good.

Yeah, absolutely. This has never taken place before. Like you just said, an incumbent Democratic president in a, uh, seemingly uncompetitive primary this early in the year. Here's what I'll tell you that it did. Our ability to get out and engage with voters in January was incredible.

We had more voter contact in Spartanburg County in the month of January than we've had in two years. And because there was a very strategic plan set forth by the state party with regional directors that were able to help chairs and other party leadership execute it, it actually did more party building than I have seen since I have been chair.

And that alone, from like a measurement standpoint, has set the pace for how we are working around the state together and how we're even working regionally.

Were you able to do that because There was money from the national Biden campaign infiltrated into, um, the state party, or was that state party fundraising?

There was investment by the DNC and then the state party, Crystal Spain, she's hyper focused on making sure we're grassroots, um, and building on a local and regional level and that's where they invested it. Um, and if I'm honest, from the strategic standpoint, we had really good leadership chairs were able to take a playbook and execute that in our counties, the voter turnout was something like a 15 to 20 percent increase.

And early voting among black voters. I think there was at least a half a dozen counties that saw a significant increase in voting as well. And it helped these local parties really start to make voter contact much earlier in the year.

And there's also been a lot of talk that on the Democrat side, people did not vote in that primary because they're saving to vote in the Republican primary too. Elevate Nikki Haley, and I do know that, for example, in twenty twenty, over 540, 000 people voted in the Dem primaries. So we know that there are a lot of people who are willing to participate in the Democratic primary that maybe didn't turn out because they knew Biden would be the winner, but that number of people could potentially vote for Nikki Haley in this primary.

And right now, as of today, I think Nate Cohn has it as 65 percent Trump to 31 percent Haley for the Republican primary. But if all those people actually do vote in the Republican primary, she may actually have a shot. It's unlikely, but-

I think it was a really just from a messaging standpoint until we made it through the Iowa caucus, there wasn't this huge push to not vote for Nikki.

Yeah. So that was extremely late in the game. And we did as much as we could to communicate to our local Democrats. That holding your vote is not the answer. And I still feel like it is statistically improbable for her to overcome Trump. And quite frankly, our state GOP is going to make sure of that. They have picked their person.

That is extremely evident. I actually completely understand and respect the emotional reaction to do everything you can to stop Donald Trump. But at the end of the day, she will not beat him. There aren't enough Democrats to swing. And she also is touting the same agenda. She's just dressing it up differently.

I mean, if we're really just talking the brass tacks of it, we aren't voting in our best interest voting for Nikki Haley. That's coming from a woman who's gonna lift up other women till the day she dies. That's not the answer. I can give you all kinds of reasons. But. Here's another one. It just really screws with our data.

We can't find you if you keep voting in Republican primaries.

That actually leads me to another question, which is on that same Republican primary ballot, they've put three questions which have no value other than essentially being a poll. One of the questions, which is worded in a tricky way, says, should South Carolina law be changed?

To give people the right to register to vote with the political party of their choice, which makes it sound like you're missing out on a right, but in actuality, the right is being able to vote in either the Republican or Democrat primary as we have an open primary. So it doesn't be you up to always vote in one primary or the other.

It's an interesting way that they worded it. But two, the Republicans are really pushing for people to choose a team.

To register by party. Yeah. And it's not the first time we've seen it. It's not the last time. And I feel like in the last couple of years, we've seen a similar question about school board races.

Yeah, absolutely. And so it's just a constant effort towards polarization from by and large a general population. Who does not want to be polarized. If you take the 5 percent that's like lighting themselves on fire and screaming the loudest out of the equation, we're all like marginally aligned here.

And what do you think the, as we were talking about earlier, the issues on the ground in the 13 cities that make up Spartanburg County in the different districts.

What do you feel like the primary issues are that affect directly the people living in your Spartanburg County?

So we're one of the fastest growing areas in the state. We've had billions of dollars of investment in this community, infrastructure and otherwise. And I think people really want to see smart growth.

They want to be part of the growth. The folks who have been here for a long time and helping this community become what it is and realize its dreams, want to make sure they're taken care of too. We have a lot of folks who, from a cost of living, Spartanburg's still relatively moderate. People are still living paycheck to paycheck and trying to take care of their families.

And I think that's still a huge issue. And then you add access to healthcare on top of it, you know, that's a big one up here. So I think those same top issues are resoundingly what you would hear, you know, in other regions around the state, but they certainly hit home in our community. That's really just booming right now.

And I did read Trump is endorsed by over a hundred pastors in South Carolina. The man that was quoted was from Spartanburg County, why people should vote for Trump, that he's gifted with the abilities to strengthen the American economy. And basically the language coming out of a lot of the religious community is on national issues, not local issues.

He went on to say that Trump would protect the security and freedom of American families. And I just wonder how that translates to the people that you were talking about, a lot of the women who have watched health care be taken away, a lot of the gun issues that are going through our, our state house and Senate right now, or do they not?

I think the health is a real crossover. Everything that you just said, for me, is all encompassing under safety. In general, people are not feeling safe. And that can drill down into a variety of ways. I'm just gonna say this because we just have to, at every turn, continue to dispel these narratives. We had our annual chamber kickoff meeting, like vision meeting at the very beginning of the year.

And so chief economist from Wells Fargo came in and just talked about Spartanburgs, just like off charts, right? Trends we're seeing, et cetera. And then he couched it in because of what's happened in the last three years. Basically, I heard under the Biden administration, you have been able to grow exponentially.

You've had a massive investment in infrastructure from a federal level, the Gipson Science Act, it was just one after the other. And it was undeniable that the current administration has been an extraordinary boon for this area. So to say that Donald Trump is setting the pace for all of this that we're seeing in our economy is, is.

It's not fact. We are seeing what we are seeing right now because we were able to move under this administration.

And so that's essentially your job is to be able to translate what the party and the leadership of the party has been able to do. I guess it's really up to you to show what can be versus like what is in the state house.

It can match what's coming out of the federal government.

That's right. And it's, again, Gosh, is it a long game? We have one Democrat representing us in our legislature. She's a Black woman. Powerhouse. I don't know how she's been doing it this long. And you have an increasing Freedom Caucus coalition building up here.

And so there has never been more critical time to be running good candidates. And for all of that reason, it's an interesting conversation. And we have it with our local nonprofits and advocacy organizations. You can advocate all day long and if there isn't somebody sitting in that state house willing to listen to you and pick up the ball, then what are you expected to do?

That's right. And I wonder too, I get asked a lot by friends who are moderates but tend to lean to the right. Isn't it better for me to support a moderate Republican in the primary versus the Democrat. So how would you respond to that question?

Yeah, I think that goes back to the Nikki Haley conversation.

She's no moderate.

Just the voting in the Republican primary, right? Right, right. If we as Democrats do not If we don't show up and vote for Democrats, we will not move forward. And I know that's a tough conversation. It is the norm up here because there's so few people on your ballot when you're a Democrat, but we have got to start to change that tune.

We just have to, and we can't expect people to until we provide a candidate for them.

And, uh, just to expand on that point, if you're voting for the moderate Republican, you're still voting for someone that is going to have to vote with their party on multiple policy. They always have to do that. They're not going to be able to buck up against their party very often.

No. And we have seen that play out in the last four years up here. You fall in line or we're going to unseat you. So, our more moderate Republicans. We have a tragic voting record right now. We are in a moment where that theory would have played out differently two or three cycles ago. And that is not the case anymore.

But again, to your point, even in an 80 percent district, a Democrat isn't running. The narrative goes all to the Republican that's running, right? There's no opposition to what's being put out. And that person doesn't even really have to run. They just get to go talk without anyone going against them other than people that are farther to the right of them.

It feels at times like a wholly unchecked system. And so it's just this incremental movement to really start to get people to understand how important it is to make sure these races don't go uncontested. But we've got to instill confidence. We've been working on this for at least 18 months to get people to this point.

And I think if this long game isn't in place, nothing will ever change because it's going to take a long time to get people to realize that there is a shot in some races and others there isn't. But you still have to participate because if you're not supporting them, there's no chance in the long term that seat will ever change.

That's exactly right. And a lot of that is getting much more strategic about the development. We cannot continue to fatigue donors as part of this. And that's certainly part of the strategy and that's in every part of the state.

On that note, Katherine, this has been such an awesome conversation. Thank you.

You are definitely going to need your bright eye bushy tail to continue in this job for the long term.

We appreciate having folks like you in the mix, Grace. This has been wonderful.

That's all the stew for today. Talk to you next week.

The Frogmore Stew Podcast is written and hosted by Grace Cowan.

Editing and I. T. support by Eric Johnson produced by P. J. Phillips with the Podcast Solutions Network.