South-Carolina

Can South Carolina’s Haley and Scott woo the GOP’s white evangelical base away from Trump?

Published

9 months ago

August 22, 2023

Can South Carolina’s Haley and Scott woo the GOP’s white evangelical base away from Trump?

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — In 2015, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott attended the funerals of those slain by a racist gunman at Mother Emanuel AME Church. Scott would later tear up on the Senate floor recounting the faith of the fallen and their families. Haley would go on to write that she leaned on God and her faith deepened as she grappled with the trauma of the Charleston shooting.

If the state’s first Asian American governor and its first Black senator since Reconstruction embodied how far South Carolina has come on race, the murders of the Emanuel Nine showed just how far it has to go.

Eight years later, the region around Charleston, known as the Holy City, is home to the two Republicans’ presidential campaigns. Scott grew up in North Charleston, and after leaving her post as U.N. ambassador, Haley moved to nearby Kiawah Island.

Both are still waiting for a breakthrough moment, possibly in the first GOP debate on Wednesday. Both have been part of influential S.C. churches, and as candidates of color must appeal to their party’s white evangelical base to have a prayer against former President Donald Trump, whose hold on the GOP and its Christian voters remains strong.

“These two have managed to make their mark nationally, in part because they are candidates of color, and they have done it without emphasizing that fact,” said Danielle Vinson, a political science professor at Furman University. “It’s still a bit of a necessity in a Republican Party that wants to focus on a colorblind society that has made great strides.”

For Haley, an Indian American raised Sikh before converting to mainline Christianity, faith is just one of many differences she learned to navigate as “a brown girl in a black-and-white world,” as she likes to say.

For Scott, raised in the Black church tradition by his single mother before becoming a born-again Christian, faith is a central part of his pitch. He is counting on his fellow evangelicals to help him in the crowded GOP field.

On a recent Sunday in August, while Scott was on the campaign trail, nearly 6,000 people gathered at his home congregation — the flagship location of Seacoast Church in the well-heeled suburb of Mt. Pleasant. The congregation, like the neighborhood, is predominantly white. With 14 locations, it reaches nearly 21,000 people in-person and online every weekend.

“Here, Tim’s just Tim,” said Jack Hoey III, the church’s creative director.

Founding pastor Greg Surratt said he has met monthly with Scott for more than two decades. Scott has served on the church board and for a time considered leaving politics for the ministry.

“He and I both tell the story differently and kid each other about it. He says I fired him before he got a job,” Surratt said, recalling how he counseled Scott to stay in politics.

“I said, ‘Tim, we’d love to have you, but you have a bigger platform in your future, and I think that politics is going to be your platform.’ I really felt at that time that someday he would be a national voice.”

Shortly after Scott became a senator, Surratt got a call on a Monday from the church’s facilities director. The senator, he learned, was in the men’s restroom scrubbing the floor.

“He really felt like if he was going to serve in a public way in high levels, he needed to serve in low levels where no one was going to see him,” Surratt said.

Two hours inland from Seacoast sits Mount Horeb, South Carolina’s largest Methodist church and Haley’s longtime spiritual home when she lived in Lexington County.

“I’ve been blessed to see how God has been at work in Governor Nikki Haley’s life over the years,” wrote the church’s pastor, the Rev. Jeff Kersey, in an email. “I believe her faith guides and inspires her compassion, courage, and convictions.”

Kersey added, “I am concerned that the decisions Mt. Horeb has made concerning our convictions and compassions have been and will be politicized when it comes to Governor Haley.”

This year Mount Horeb left the United Methodist Church — part of a wave of conservative congregations defecting because they don’t support LGBTQ unions or pastors. Mount Horeb has joined the newly formed Global Methodist Church, and hosted the state’s first GMC conference.

Kersey prayed at a service before Haley’s first inauguration. Back then, Haley had walked a fine line between honoring her Sikh heritage and professing her Christian faith. A state legislator had called her a racial slur, and whisper campaigns about her religion abounded. Her website was revised to mention not only her belief in God but also Christ.

Haley’s parents — from prominent families in Punjab — immigrated to rural South Carolina where her father taught at Voorhees, a historically Black college. They stood out: He wore a turban and her mother a sari. When her parents’ place of worship, called a gurdwara, opened a new building in 2013, Haley spoke.

“I don’t feel like I’m standing here as your governor,” she told the crowd. “I feel like I’m standing here as the little girl that you raised. I see all my uncles and aunties here.”

Her parents taught her that there was more than one path to God. She was married in both Sikh and Christian ceremonies. Unlike GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, who remains Hindu, Haley converted.

“We chose Christianity because of the way we wanted to live our life and raise our children,” she told The New York Times in 2012.

Like fellow GOP candidate Ron DeSantis, Haley doesn’t wear her faith on her sleeve. Longtime aides say she isn’t one to quote Bible verses, but religion is important to her.

At the U.N., Haley championed religious minorities, and she has forged ties with evangelical leaders, particularly Christian Zionists like John Hagee, head of Christians United for Israel.

On the stump, her ally-turned-rival Scott sounds like the preacher he didn’t become. Except for Mike Pence, no other candidate touts their evangelical bonafides like Scott.

As a college student, Scott had an evangelical conversion experience at Fellowship of Christian Athletes. His speeches invoke both his Black Baptist roots and the upbeat tenor of evangelicalism.

“The way he speaks about encouragement, opportunity, optimism, finding our best selves, so much of it is resonant with the language and the feel of a modern megachurch,” said Melani McAlister, American studies professor at George Washington University. “Listening to him, I thought he could be Joel Osteen.”

When discussing personal hardships or tragedies like the Charleston church shooting, Haley and Scott prefer to focus on the positive, denying that America is structurally and irredeemably racist.

“I know America is a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression,” Scott says in his speeches.

The Rev. Joseph Darby of Nichols Chapel AME knows Mother Emanuel touched anyone “with a heart,” especially South Carolinians like Haley and Scott.

But Darby, who mentored Emanuel pastor Clementa Pinckney, who was killed in the attack, takes issue with a “kumbaya response” that emphasizes the Black community’s forgiveness at the expense of systemic change.

“There wasn’t a moment of revelatory grace extended to the Black community beyond the Emanuel event,” said Darby, also a Charleston NAACP leader. “We have not seen Senator Scott much. We’ve not seen Governor Haley much. They are appealing to white evangelicals, following the GOP party line.”

The GOP party line still leads straight to Trump, according to polls. Haley and Scott are in low single digits nationally.

Chip Felkel, a former GOP strategist in South Carolina and a Never-Trumper, wishes Scott and Haley — along with religious leaders — would come out stronger against Trump.

“In a state like South Carolina, until religious leaders are willing to engage as forcibly against him as they have been for him, he’s still going to be in good shape.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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Ad spending shows where the presidential campaign is really taking place

Published

7 hours ago

May 26, 2024

Press Room

Ad spending shows where the presidential campaign is really taking place

If you are one of the lucky people in the most hotly contested presidential states, you are seeing a lot of advertising.

And with just over five months to go until Election Day and only about three-and-a-half months until people start early voting, the deluge is just beginning.

The election is being fought most acutely in seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Don’t take our word for it. Look at the actions of the campaigns since March 6, a day after Super Tuesday, the unofficial start to the general election this year:

Overall, $72.1 million has been spent on ads (TV, radio, satellite and digital) in that time in the presidential election, according to an NPR analysis of data from AdImpact, which tracks ad spending.

Almost 70% of that has been spent in the seven key states, especially in Pennsylvania, where $21.2 million has been spent. That means that almost $3 out of every $10 spent is going to one state.

Clearly, the campaigns see the Keystone state as, well, a keystone to this election.

Democrats are outspending Republicans by more than double — $49.2 million to $22.1 million.

Take a look at the spending state by state. In every state, President Biden and his allies are outspending former President Donald Trump and the groups boosting him. In some places, Trump hasn’t been on the air at all.

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Biden’s campaign is the biggest spender of the election so far at $34.2 million and counting. MAGA Inc., an outside group supporting Trump, is second, putting up almost $12 million. Trump’s campaign has spent nearly zilch on ads, just $70,521, as of Friday afternoon.

Four dollars out of every $5 MAGA Inc. has spent has gone to Pennsylvania. The other $1 is mostly going to Georgia, where it’s spending $1.2 million. Trump and allies have not been on the air at all in four of the Lucky Seven: Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada or Wisconsin.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent and is getting double-digits in most national polls, has spent a little over $800,000 total on ads.

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The most-run ad of the campaign so far is this pro-Biden one about protecting the Affordable Care Act. It’s run 7,700 times in 17 days in all seven states.

It’s quite the turn, considering that Obamacare was the reason for Democrats getting “shellacked,” as former President Barack Obama put it, in the 2010 midterm elections.

But that reflects the change in public opinion. Back in January 2014, the ACA’s popularity hit its nadir — 53% unfavorable; just 37% had a favorable opinion of it, according to KFF’s tracking poll. But as of April, 62% have a favorable opinion of the law — the highest ever.

MAGA’s Inc.’s most-run ad is focused on immigration, but it has started to run this one most in the past week, which is focused on the economy (and makes unfounded claims about Biden’s mental faculties).

On the issues, abortion has by far been the focus of the most spending and total number of ads. Some $19 million has been spent on abortion messaging, with 50 different ads.

Next on the list (some ads reference more than one of these) are:

immigration: $8.7 million
crime: $8.4 million
economy: $6.8 million
inflation: $5.4 million
Obamacare/Affordable Care Act: $5.2 million
jobs: $1.8 million

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At least 5 dead in Texas after severe weather hits Texas and Oklahoma

Published

14 hours ago

May 26, 2024

Press Room

At least 5 dead in Texas after severe weather hits Texas and Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY — A Texas sheriff says at least five people are dead after powerful storms tore through a rural community, obliterating homes and leaving thousands of people without power Sunday.

Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told The Associated Press that the victims included three family members who were found in one home near Valley View, a rural community near the border with Oklahoma.

The destructive storms began Saturday night. Officials said a tornado north of Dallas overturned heavy recreational vehicles, shut down an interstate and caused extensive damage to a highway travel center where drivers had rushed to take shelter.

“Search and rescue is ongoing,” Sappington said Sunday morning. “But we’ve already started to do recovery of the deceased, as well. But we do have five confirmed (dead), but sadly, we think that that number is probably going to go up.”

Forecasters had issued tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings for parts of both states, as some heat records were broken during the day in South Texas and residents received triple-digit temperature warnings over the long holiday weekend.

A tornado crossed into northern Denton County in Texas late Saturday and overturned tractor-trailer trucks, stopping traffic on Interstate 35, Denton County Community Relations Director Dawn Cobb said in a statement.

The tornado was confirmed near Valley View, moving east at 40 mph (64 kph), prompting the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning for northern Denton County, Cobb said.

The storm damaged homes, overturned motorhomes and knocked down power lines and trees throughout the area including points in Sanger, Pilot Point, Ray Roberts Lake and Isle du Bois State Park, Cobb said.

People who suffered injuries in the storm were transported to area hospitals by ground and air ambulances, but the number of injuries in the county was not immediately known, Cobb said, while a shelter was opened in Sanger.

The fire department in the city of Denton, about 37 miles (59.5 kilometers) north of Forth Worth, Texas, posted on X that emergency personnel were responding to a marina “for multiple victims, some reported trapped.”

The Claremore, Oklahoma, police announced on social media that the city about 28 miles (45 kilometers) east of Tulsa was “shut down” as a result of storm damage including downed power lines and trees and inaccessible roads.

Earlier Saturday night, the National Weather Service’s office in Norman, Oklahoma, said via the social platform X that the warning was for northern Noble and far southern Kay counties, an area located to the north of Oklahoma City. “If you are in the path of this storm take cover now!” it said.

A following post at 10:05 p.m. said storms had exited the area but warned of a storm moving across north Texas that could affect portions of south central Oklahoma.

At 10:24 p.m., the weather service office in Fort Worth posted a message warning residents in Era and Valley View they were in the direct path of a possible tornado and to immediately seek shelter. The Forth Worth office continued to post notices and shelter warnings tracking the movement of the storm through midnight and separately issued a severe thunderstorm warning with “golf ball sized hail” possible.

The weather service office in Tulsa, Oklahoma, warned on X of a dangerous storm moving across the northeast part of the state through 2 a.m. and issued severe thunderstorm notices for communities including Hugo, Boswell, Fort Towson, Grainola, Foraker and Herd.

The Norman office had compared conditions Saturday to “a gasoline-soaked brush pile.” Forecasters said any storms that form could explode with large hail, dangerous winds and tornadoes.

“There’s a small chance most of the matches are duds and we only see a few storms today. Still, that’s not a match I would want to play with. It only takes one storm to be impactful,” it said via Facebook.

Excessive heat, especially for May, was the danger in South Texas, where the heat index was forecast to approach 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius) in some spots during the weekend. Actual temperatures will be lower, although still in triple-digit territory, but the humidity will make it feel that much hotter.

The region is on the north end of a heat dome stretching from Mexico to South America, National Weather Service meteorologist Zack Taylor said.

Sunday looks like the hottest day with record highs for late May forecast for Austin, Brownsville, Dallas and San Antonio, Taylor said.

Brownsville and Harlingen near the Texas-Mexico border already set new records Saturday for the May 25 calendar date — 99 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) and 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), respectively — according to the weather service.

Red Flag fire warnings were also in place in West Texas, all of New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma, Arizona and Colorado. Humidity was very low, under 10%, and wind gusts of up to 60 mph (97 kph) were recorded.

“We’ve got very dry air, warm temperatures and strong winds creating a high fire danger over a wide area … that can lead to rapidly spreading or uncontrollable fires,” Taylor said.

Meanwhile, several inches of snow fell Friday into early Saturday in Rolla, North Dakota, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the Canadian border.

April and May have been a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest. Climate change is heightening the severity of storms around the world.

April saw the United States’ second-highest number of tornadoes on record. So far for 2024, the country is already 25% ahead of the average number of twisters, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman.

Iowa was hit hard this week, when a deadly twister devastated Greenfield. And other storms brought flooding and wind damage elsewhere in the state.

The storm system causing the severe weather was expected to move east as the Memorial Day weekend continues, bringing rain that could delay the Indianapolis 500 auto race Sunday in Indiana and more severe storms in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky.

The risk of severe weather moves into North Carolina and Virginia on Monday, forecasters said.

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Former Rockledge Raider Raheim Sanders Looks to Revitalize South Carolina's Rushing Attack – Space Coast Daily

Published

21 hours ago

May 26, 2024

Press Room

Former Rockledge Raider Raheim Sanders Looks to Revitalize South Carolina's Rushing Attack – Space Coast Daily

rushed for 1,443 yards rushing, 10 touchdowns in 2022

In 2023, South Carolina faced numerous issues, finishing 5-7, after posting winning records in Shane Beamer’s first two seasons.

(SI.COM) – In 2023, South Carolina faced numerous issues, finishing 5-7, after posting winning records in Shane Beamer’s first two seasons.

The Gamecock offense had its struggles, finishing 77th in the country in scoring (averaging 26 points per game), while finishing dead last amongst SEC teams in rushing yards per game.

Although they lost leading rusher Mario Anderson Jr. to Memphis via the transfer portal, the Gamecocks have hope in Arkansas transfer running back Raheim “Rocket” Sanders.

Although Sanders measures in at 225 pounds, he lives up to the “Rocket” with explosive speed, being clocked as fast as 21 mph.

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