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Day 9: Election day!

Day 9 y'all and it is ELECTION DAY! Polls are open till 7:00 pm in all forty-six counties of South Carolina and you can bet that people are making their voices heard. We started our day back at Lizard's Thicket to see Ainsley Earhardt from Fox and Friends promote the primary elections in the traditional retail politics-sense. She interviewed the tables around us. Alexa, Alexis, and I got to have a delightful conversation with the two women at the table next to us who are a part of the Republican Party and have been working in the political realm throughout their careers. I mainly talked with the younger woman (who I will not disclose their name out of respect their privacy) who has experience working in Tampa, Florida on tax reform and now on tobacco reform. Her specialty is in issue-based politics, so focusing on policy, and right now she is lobbying to protect the youth of South Carolina from the harmful toxins of e-cigarettes. What are the chances that someone who has spent time in Tampa, Florida is right besides us? To the left of us at Lizard's Thicket, was the Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Patronis. He discussed his role as an elected member of the Florida cabinet. Maybe Florida and South Carolina are more connected than I realized. 

Afterwards, we went to a Saturday market in Columbia near the State House. It was a huge outdoor market that took the space of several streets. There were food vendors, clothes sellers, artisans, and live music. It was so nice to get some free time to stroll and explore the culture of Columbia. We then went to a community center to see if there would be any live news coverage of voters entering and exiting polls. Laura, one of my classmates, made the discovery that these people holding Trump signs on the sidewalk were U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) and some of her staff members. It was ironic because our Trump interns in our course met her just a few hours prior. It was random to see her there on a random road at a community center waving Trump signs, but there she was. Considering I must remain objective and scholarly in my blogs, I'll keep my opinions to myself...let's just say I was not entirely enthusiastic to meet her...😟

Then us Democratic students went to the South Carolina Democratic Party (SCDP) headquarters to watch the turnout of the election. We did some data analysis work for the SCDP then had a pizza party while watching the election turnout. Haley won three counties including her home county (remember Michael Mulé said she would win none), but Trump won the majority of the votes in the Republican primary in South Carolina. Haley later gave a speech indicating that she is still running in the race. What an ending to all of our activities here in South Carolina!

Ainsley Earhardt - Lizard's Thicket

Eran - Saturday Market in Columbia



Protest against the war in Ukraine - Columbia market
Live news at the polling station - community center



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