© 2026 WGCU News
PBS and NPR for Southwest Florida
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick Speaks To Voters In South Carolina

By Anthony Brooks
Published November 21, 2019 at 4:12 PM EST

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Deval Patrick insists he still has time to run a successful campaign for president. The former Massachusetts governor made a late entry into the race last week. He's been campaigning in the early caucus and primary states. From member station WBUR, reporter Anthony Brooks reports that South Carolina could hold one of the keys to Patrick's long-shot bid for the White House.

ANTHONY BROOKS, BYLINE: Deval Patrick is taking the first steps of a nascent presidential campaign, starting with the question, who are you?

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DEVAL PATRICK: My name is Deval Patrick. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago.

BROOKS: Patrick has come to a small office at a strip mall on the edge of Columbia to talk to a dozen African American women entrepreneurs.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PATRICK: I'm a Democrat. I don't think you have to hate Republicans to be a good Democrat. But we do have a unique kind of leadership that seems to wake up every day trying to figure out how to divide us further. At the same time, the president says out loud what the Republican leadership have been saying in code for a long time. And so in some ways, it's an invitation to confront some old, unfinished business.

BROOKS: Patrick is not easy to pigeonhole. He was a civil rights lawyer and then a liberal Massachusetts governor, who raised taxes and the minimum wage. But he's also a corporate lawyer who embraces the benefits of the market. He was the state's first African American governor, only the second in the whole country, who campaigned on hope, a theme adopted by his old friend Barack Obama. Now, with none of the Democrats running away with the race, he sees an opening.

PATRICK: It's interesting to me that after months and years, in many cases, of other campaigns working it, they haven't gotten it done. And there was an opening, and I would say what's been confirmed in visits to the early states is that is so.

BROOKS: Patrick's audiences are small but receptive in this key state, which holds the first southern primary and where two-thirds of Democratic voters are black. Eyamba Sowers, a businesswoman, has been leaning toward Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, but she says she likes what she heard from Patrick.

EYAMBA SOWERS: I definitely did. He related a lot to what is going on with the community. He makes it seem like he understands where we are coming from.

BROOKS: So you might take a closer look at him.

SOWERS: I definitely will take a closer look.

BROOKS: That's the kind of voter Patrick hopes to win over. But some longtime political observers here say it's more than a longshot for Patrick to win in South Carolina.

JIM FELDER: Coming in this late, really, I don't see him having a chance.

BROOKS: Jim Felder is a longtime civil rights activist and a former state rep. He says Patrick will be hard-pressed to get enough boots on the ground to organize a winning campaign here. Felder is a Biden supporter and points out that the former vice president is well ahead in the polls in this state.

FELDER: This is really Biden's country. We know him - eight years with Obama, and we go way back with Joe Biden.

PATRICK: First of all, I respect polls. But I don't believe them. They're a moment in time.

BROOKS: This is Deval Patrick again.

PATRICK: The electorate is still very much in flux. If I thought it was too late, I wouldn't have done it.

BROOKS: Most politicians behind in the polls will often dismiss them. But in this case, he might be right, according to Johnnie Cordero, the chairman of the state's black caucus, which Patrick addressed this week. Cordero says it's wrong to conclude that Joe Biden has deep support in South Carolina.

JOHNNIE CORDERO: Joe Biden has a commanding lead, but he has a lead among older African Americans. But you cannot win South Carolina on that vote alone.

BROOKS: Cordero says Biden's support falls off among the growing number of millennials and other younger voters. His conclusion about the race...

CORDERO: It's wide-open.

BROOKS: Patrick would like to believe that, despite the wide lead Biden has maintained all year. He's currently running his campaign with a tiny staff, but he says it will be expanding in the coming days.

For NPR News, I'm Anthony Brooks in Columbia, S.C.

(SOUNDBITE OF AMBULANCE LTD'S "MICHIGAN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
Anthony Brooks
Anthony Brooks has more than twenty five years of experience in public radio, working as a producer, editor, reporter, and most recently, as a fill-in host for NPR. For years, Brooks has worked as a Boston-based reporter for NPR, covering regional issues across New England, including politics, criminal justice, and urban affairs. He has also covered higher education for NPR, and during the 2000 presidential election he was one of NPR's lead political reporters, covering the campaign from the early primaries through the Supreme Court's Bush V. Gore ruling. His reports have been heard for many years on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition.
See stories by Anthony Brooks
Trusted by over 30,000 local subscribers

Local News, Right Sized for Your Morning

Quick briefs when you are busy, deeper explainers when it matters, delivered early morning and curated by WGCU editors.

  • Environment
  • Local politics
  • Health
  • And more

Free and local. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

More from WGCU
  • Environment
    Introduction to White Ibises
    Dr. Jerry Jackson
    White Ibises are common birds of Florida wetlands that increase in numbers with arrival of migrants from more northern areas. While they normally feed in shallow water, they have also become birds of grassy areas such as our yards, parks, and highway and canal rights-of-way. Adults have white plumage with only the tips of outer primaries black -- a characteristic that reduces wear of those feathers. Sex of adults is often easy to distinguish when the birds are in a group. Males are larger with a longer, straighter (but still curved) bill.Females are smaller with a shorter, often more-curved bill. Young White Ibises always have white on their underparts, but recent fledglings can be almost all gray-brown. Over their first year the more-gray plumage is replaced by brown and then gradually changes to the white of an adult. Through much of the year the legs, bill, and face of a White Ibis is flesh-colored or pink, but as nesting approaches the bill, face, and legs become vibrant red. Both sexes have beautiful light blue eyes.
  • ArtFest Fort Myers takes over Edwards Drive from Heitman to Lee Street.
    Arts & Culture
    Four art festivals visit Southwest Florida February 6-8
    Tom Hall
    Four outdoor art festivals dot the Southwest Florida landscape this weekend: ArtFest Fort Myers, Bonita Springs National Art Festival, the Pine Island Art Association Annual Art Show and the 38th Annual Downtown Sarasota Festival of the Arts.
  • Jennifer Johnson and Sue Ryan co-chair the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women's Luncheon, Ritz-Carlton Naples, Tiburon Thursday February 05, 2026
    Health
    'Go Red For Women' event helps put the focus on heart disease
    Jennifer Crawford
    National Wear Red Day 2026 was celebrated on Friday via the Go Red for Women Campaign shining a light on heart disease, the leading killer of women. The Southwest Florida Go Red for Women effort took center stage at the Ritz-Carlton Naples, Tiburon Thursday.