Sen. Elizabeth Warren will campaign in Greenville, South Carolina just a week after she announced her candidacy for president at a Massachusetts rally. With the exception of a vote for southerner and Georgia native Jimmy Carter in 1976, South Carolina has reliably voted Republican in every presidential election since the civil rights era. South Carolina gave Donald Trump a winning margin over Hillary Clinton in 2016 of 15%. Warren, of course, rarely shies away from a challenge (see her Twitter feed) — and many Democrats believe that South Carolina could be ripe for a change in electoral patterns given some local election headway made by the minority party. But it’s still a tall order.
Warren will speak in Greenville at a free 11 am event that is expected to reach full capacity. (Reservations here.) Warren expects to have an audience that will appreciate her message that there is “a rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else.” It’s a message with echoes of Trump’s own “rigged system” campaign rhetoric. Warren is starting out with a lot of energy and heading into electorally challenging places early with her trip to South Carolina. It’s going to be a long campaign. It’s notable that Warren is nearly the same age as Hillary Clinton (two years her senior) was during her presidential campaign in 2015-16. At 69, Warren is three years younger than President Trump. Warren is also 40 years older than the current star of the Democratic party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
