Patrick hires operative to head his South Carolina campaign
November 25, 2019
Deval Patrick’s presidential campaign has hired LaJoia Broughton to run his South Carolina operation, a campaign official told POLITICO.
Broughton, the second person to be named publicly as a member of Patrick's fledgling campaign, is a political operative based in the state capital of Columbia. Since June, she has worked as state government affairs manager for JUUL Labs, the maker of e-cigarettes.
Broughton faces the task of bootstrapping an organization as other campaigns have spent months building out their operations in South Carolina. Local Democratic leaders said she’ll need to help the Patrick campaign tap into Democratic political networks in the state.
Johnny Cordero, an executive committee member of the Richland County Democrats, where the state capital is located, pointed to Broughton's previous experience as executive director of the Legislative Black Caucus. He said the hire was smart because she brings connections to some of the state’s most influential black leaders.
“Get all of those people on board, then bring their people in,” he said. “Then make a concerted outreach to all the other African American communities who have been left behind.”
State Rep. John King, Broughton's previous boss and the immediate past president of the legislative black caucus, said she has her work cut out.
“Her first challenge is Deval Patrick came out at the last minute and I think a telltale of it was his visit to Morehouse,” said King, a Cory Booker supporter, referring to a Patrick campaign event at the Atlanta college that was canceled when only two people showed up. The campaign chalked it up to a miscommunication.
Patrick campaign manager Abe Rakov said Broughton has deep personal ties to South Carolina. She grew up in Mauldin, near the North Carolina border, and completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in state.
Source: https://www.politico.com/
