Jaime Harrison was the talk of the internet this weekend after decimating U.S. Senator for South Carolina Lindsey Graham during their debate on Saturday — from behind a plexiglass shield at that. 

Harrison, who's competing against Graham for his U.S. Senate seat, has shocked election watchers in South Carolina, pulling into a dead heat in his race to replace Graham as one of the state's senator as FiveThirtyEight reports.

Harrison blasted Graham for his stances on President Donald Trump, the government's coronavirus response and his hypocrisy related to the attempt at replacing former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg just weeks before the election. 

“Listening to Senator Graham…reminds me of playing Monopoly with my son. He changes the rules every [chance] he gets,” Harrison said, citing the senator's shifting public statements about Trump and the vacant Supreme Court seat.

After Harrison called Graham's actions with the open Supreme Court seat "heresy," the senator had no response other than touting Trump's constitutional right to filling the seat, bucking the very rule he and his Republican colleagues created in 2016. 

To add an element of shame to the proceedings, Harrison even brought his own plexiglass shield to the event, a veiled shot at Graham and his senior Republican colleagues who have faced criticism in recent days for flouting CDC guidelines at multiple events and causing an outbreak of coronavirus infections, according to The Daily Beast. 

Graham is on the Senate Judiciary Committee with Thom Tillis, a senator for North Carolina, and Mike Lee, a senator Utah, both of whom tested positive for coronavirus late last week after attending an event with other senior Republicans, like Trump, who later tested positive for COVID-19, according to The New York Times. 

Harrison ripped Graham for saying the country needed to "move on" from the crisis created by the coronavirus pandemic and spent much of the debate complaining about protesters who have been outside of his home. 

He said he brought the plexiglass shield because he has already had family members die from COVID-19 and wanted to keep everyone around him safe, something he said the senator should also focus on. 

“Because, you know, it’s not just about me. It’s about the people in my life that I have to take care of, as well. My two boys, my wife, my grandmother…Let’s take this issue seriously and do all that we can to not only take care of ourselves, but each other,” Harrison said. 

Graham, a longtime power broker within the Republican leadership ranks, has spent weeks appearing on Fox News begging for financial help in his race. He has claimed repeatedly in interviews that Harrison is being supported so heavily because people "hate" him.

Harrison also blasted Graham for his stances on another round of federal stimulus checks and for his desire to ban abortion. 

"Senator Graham said 'over our dead bodies would be allow a federal extension of the unemployment benefit.' Folks need that money and we need leadership to get those things that are necessary for our families to open back up," he said.

"What we need to do is look at health care. And particularly health care for women. Here in South Carolina we have some of the highest infant mortality rates in the country. Two years ago here in South Carolina 14 of our 46 counties had no, 0 OBGYNs," Harrison added.

People online said Harrison's performance and responses to Graham's barbs were part of what made him such a strong candidate.

Harrison was very happy with his performance, noting that the campaign had their best fundraising hours right after the debate. 

He later appeared on MSNBC to discuss the reasons behind the plexiglass shield. 

"[My wife] wants to make sure I'm around for my boys. I also have a pre-existing condition. It's important to be safe. No campaign is worth anybody's life… We're going to do our best to show the type of leadership that's needed," he told host Joy Reid. 

He also told The Hill, "I don't know who Lindsey thought he was debating tonight."

Harrison's rise in the polls has astonished onlookers because South Carolina is a heavily red state that Trump won by 14 percentage points in 2016, according to ABC.

Graham won his third reelection race in 2014 by 16 percentage points.

"There hasn't been a Democrat elected to the Senate from South Carolina since 1998. Outspent and labeled by critics as an apologist for President Trump, Lindsey Graham is facing the fight of his political life," Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement to Salon.

2020 electionJaime-HarrisonLindsey GrahamSouth-Carolina