By Adrian Ashford
COLUMBIA — Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is looking to return to Washington by winning back the congressional seat he lost eight years ago.
The two-term GOP governor on Monday joined South Carolina’s most crowded contest this year, with 10 other Republicans and seven Democrats vying to represent the coastal 1st Congressional District.
Sanford, who’s seeking his third stint in Congress, turned in his paperwork with less than two hours remaining in the two-week filing period. While other candidates have been running for months for the chance to replace U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, Sanford has the immediate advantage of name recognition.
Other last-day surprises for June primary ballots included state Democratic Party Chairman Trav Robertson, who is among two Democrats challenging GOP Treasurer Curtis Loftis.
This is Robertson’s first bid for office himself, though he’s been involved in party politics for decades. His experience includes working as a spokesman and assistant to the last Democrat to lead the state’s bank: the late Grady Patterson, who was defeated in 2006 after four decades in the job.
A seventh Republican entered the race Monday to replace Gov. Henry McMaster.
Jacqueline Hicks DuBose of Hartsville, who runs a cleaning company in the Pee Dee, joins Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, Mace, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, Isle of Palms businessman Rom Reddy, and Attorney General Alan Wilson on the GOP ballot for governor.
The first state GOP-organized debate in the race was set for Wednesday. It was unclear if DuBose would be a fifth person on the stage. Reddy and Evette aren’t participating, though Reddy says he’ll participate in the state party’s future debates.
1st Congressional District
The 10 Republicans who filed ahead of Sanford in the 1st Congressional District race, wide open because of Mace’s bid for governor, include four others with elected experience: a legislator and three county council members. None have the statewide name recognition of the two-term governor.
State Rep. Mark Smith of Daniel Island, who launched his bid last August, criticized Sanford as showing up “when it is politically convenient” and turning his back on Trump.
“Mark Sanford is back — not because the Lowcountry asked for him, but because he cannot give up the spotlight,” Smith said.
Sanford did not respond to voicemail and text messages Monday from the S.C. Daily Gazette.
Known as a fiscal conservative, Sanford is expected to again focus on the nation’s debt, which has only grown since his first election to Congress in 1994.
The mounting deficit is what Sanford, a long-time Trump critic, intended to spark a national debate about in 2019, during his short-lived presidential campaign that never got traction. But even the South Carolina GOP refused to hold a 2020 presidential primary, which Sanford protested by traveling the state with a cardboard cutout of Trump.
Smith also criticized Sanford as a “governor who went missing,” a reference to the scandal that forever gave new meaning to “hiking the Appalachian Trail.”
Sanford was considered a 2012 presidential contender until he disappeared for five days in 2009. Not knowing where he went, his spokesman told reporters that the governor, an outdoor enthusiast, was unreachable because he was on the trail. Instead, as Sanford acknowledged at a Statehouse news conference when he returned, he was in Argentina visiting his mistress. Legislators voted to censure Sanford but declined calls to impeach him.
A crowded GOP field is what aided his remarkable comeback just two years after he left the Governor’s Mansion.
In 2013, Sanford won a 16-way Republican primary to fill the vacancy created when then-Gov. Nikki Haley appointed Tim Scott to the U.S. Senate. He returned to Washington as the 1st District representative after defeating Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of late-night comedian Stephen Colbert.
Sanford was re-elected twice before narrowly losing the 2018 GOP primary to then-state Rep. Katie Arrington, who received Trump’s endorsement. Democrat Joe Cunningham then won that November to flip the seat blue for a single term before Mace flipped it back red in 2020.
Treasurer’s office
Loftis, first elected 16 years ago, has fought back efforts for his removal over a $1.8 billion accounting error that went unreported for a decade. Senators voted 33-8 last year to take the unusual step of ousting a statewide elected official. But the House declined to take up the issue.
A forensic accounting firm hired by the state ultimately found that all but $200 million of the mystery money was never real. No misspending was found.
Amid a grilling from senators, Loftis said in April 2024 that he would not seek another term. But he later reversed course and maintains he did nothing wrong.
Robertson, who worked for Patterson during his last two terms as treasurer, said he decided to challenge Loftis because “somebody needs to bring some type of financial stability back to the treasurer’s office,” which he called “woefully mismanaged.”
Referring to Loftis, Robertson said, “He has one job, and he failed at that one job. If any CEO or CFO of a company managed their business like this, the stakeholders would fire him immediately.”
Robertson will face Vincent Coe of Florence in the Democratic primary. The longtime banker filed for the race two weeks ago.
In response, Loftis’ campaign consultant pointed out the treasurer is already the GOP winner, as no Republican filed to oppose the treasurer in the primary.
“Treasurer Loftis is thankful to once again be the Republican nominee,” Justin Evans said in a statement that did not address the treasurer’s Democratic opposition.
“He is grateful for the continued trust of South Carolina voters and looks forward to serving another four years as State Treasurer,” Evans said.
No Democrat has won statewide office in South Carolina since 2006.
Both parties claim wins
Democrats celebrated Monday having a candidate on every ballot statewide. For the first time in more than 50 years, a Democrat is running for every statewide and federal office, as well as all 124 state House seats, said state Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain.
A group of Democrats who call their initiative Comeback SC pointed out they need to flip six seats in the state House to break the GOP supermajority in the chamber.
The party “has succeeded in bringing in a groundswell of candidates and activists who represent a new day for our party and the beginning of a comeback,” the group said in a release. “Now we get to work breaking the Republican supermajority in November.”
The state Republican Party responded with a different set of figures: 464 GOP candidates will appear on June ballots for all offices, compared to 384 Democrats for their party’s nomination.
“The reason for that is the same as why so many people are leaving the Democrats behind: because the Republican Party represents the vast majority of voters in South Carolina and our shared conservative values,” Chairman Drew McKissick said in a Monday news release.
Adrian Ashford covers campaigns and elections for the SC Daily Gazette. Before moving to South Carolina, he covered faith and religion for The Dallas Morning News. He studied religion and politics at Harvard and wrote a thesis about evolving interpretations of the First Amendment. The S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.