Brack: Presidential candidates flocking to South Carolina

Commentary by Andy Brack | Every four years, that rarest of critters – the aspirant for the presidency of the United States – emerges like a periodical cicada.

Across South Carolina, the Democratic species is starting to make appearances because the Palmetto State will host the nation’s first primary on Jan. 22, 2028.

Meanwhile, the Republican variety of presidential contender is mostly still buried and probably waiting until after the midterms to peek out its head in fear of looking like an unfaithful Trump acolyte. Iowa will host the first GOP caucuses in early January 2028 and South Carolina is home to the South’s first GOP primary later that month.

So the buzz is on the Democratic side. Already, there have been visits by a slew of possible candidates, including governors (California’s Gavin Newsom, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and Maryland’s Wes Moore) as well as senators (Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, both from Arizona, Connecticut’s Chris Murphy and New Jersey’s Cory Booker) and at least one congressman (California’s Ro Khanna). Other 2026 Democratic visitors include former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

Others you may see in the months ahead: U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia and even more governors (J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro). Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s 2024 nominee, participated in a Columbia fundraiser recently, but many think her time has passed.

In the months ahead, you’ll hear all sorts of messages about what America needs and how it can get beyond the damage done to the federal government by President Donald Trump. Some leaders will focus on the current administration’s corruption. Others will highlight the tanking economy with its high prices for gas, food and housing. And others will wax about the benefits of investing in America to grow jobs and build opportunities.

But all of their messages will boil down to something that worked for former President Barack Obama – hope. These Democrats will want to share visions of how the nation can restore itself to its former glory and inspire Americans to hope and dream again.

“I believe that people are going to be looking for something better,” Kentucky’s Beshear said in a recent interview. “They’re going to want decency and they’re going to want kindness, though I would say never mistake kindness for weakness.”

He said Americans are going to demand that the next president fix the economy and how government works. For example, “I think the next Democratic president should make an aspirational investment in housing,” he said.

Candidates will spend a lot of time in our early primary state doing something else, too – listening to what people are hopeful and worried about. Trump, Beshear observed, simply doesn’t listen. He issues edicts that cause congressional Republicans to scurry around like bugs on the floor.

He asked: “So, how do you know exactly what people are going through without listening to them? Are you going to presuppose that you have all the answers?

“The solutions are already there. Community leaders have already been working towards them for decades. What they need is a good partner and that requires a lot of listening.”

Beshear said he believes voters will demand new levels of accountability in the next president after a Trump second term filled with cruelty, corruption, hiding the Epstein files and twisting federal agencies into partisan policy vendors.

“We have to clean up government and make people believe that government can work again, but we’re also going to have to show such a better example, where you can put your kids in front of the TV and not hear the president go on an expletive-filled diatribe.”