Jaime Harrison has held an extensive career in politics and public service. The first in his family to attend college, Harrison would go on to work for South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn, serve as State Party Chair for South Carolina, and run for Senate in 2020, setting new fundraising records. Most recently, Harrison served as the chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2021 to 2025. Harrison sat down with the HPR to discuss the current state of the Democratic Party, the challenges ahead, and why he’s optimistic about the future.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
HPR: Where would you categorize the current state of the Democratic Party?
Jaime Harrison: I think there’s a lot of hyperbolic feelings about the state of Democratic Party. If you take a look at recent history, particularly coming off of a presidential election loss, there’s a lot of handwringing that happens in the Democratic Party. I went and looked back at some of the headlines from after the 2004 election, and it was almost the same thing: “The Democratic Party needs an autopsy,” “there’s an obituary of the Democratic Party.” What happened in 2004 [was that] you saw overreach by Republicans, once they took the majority in the House and the Senate, and George W. Bush won reelection. That overreach forced the American people to say, “This is not quite what we wanted. Let’s take a look at the other party.”
In ’06 the party that all the newspapers were saying was dead won the House, won the Senate, and in 2008, won the White House. I see a pattern very similar to the ’06 election, and I basically wrote a substack a few months ago about how I believe that 2026 is going to be an echo of 2006. Very similar sentiments, very similar reactions of the Republican majority. That’s going to force the American people to, once again, say, “You know what, maybe the Democrats aren’t that bad, and we’re going to go with them.”
HPR: There’s been a debate in the post-2024 landscape. Some like Bernie Sanders argue that the Democrats abandoned the working class, while others, including Jim Clyburn in an HPR interview, have stated that the changing institutional landscape is more to blame. How can Democrats respond to both?
JH: I think Democrats definitely have to make sure that they are on the ground, and tapping into the sentiments that people are feeling — not what we think they are feeling, or what the polling says they’re feeling, but what they’re actually feeling, and we get that from the anecdotal discussions that we have with them. There was a lot of frustration, I think it’s residual frustration, coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of that anxiety, some of the difficulties and challenges, were still there for a lot of folks. Making sure that we, the party for the majority of that time, are listening to folks and going in collectively to address it, is actually really important. At the same time, I think what folks are now saying is that just because people say nice things and good things, and things that we want to hear, doesn’t mean that their intentions are always to fix those issues. That’s what Donald Trump did. He said a lot of great things, but he sold people a barrel of rotten apples. I think people have buyer’s remorse. They aren’t happy with what they got. The scary part is if we don’t curb the authoritarian tendencies of this guy, we may not have an opportunity to buy anything else.
HPR: What should the vision for the Democratic Party be moving forward?
JH: For me, what’s important is for the Democratic Party to continue to be a party for all Americans, a party that believes that all Americans should be able to live their American dream, flourish, and be their best selves. That’s what I think, to make the words of the founders actually mean something, that we are all created equal. Are we there yet? No. But should we continue each and every day to try to strive to get there? Yes. I believe that’s where the party is and what the party has to continue to do.
