By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | As South Carolina Democrats prepare to hold their state convention in Columbia April 28, they face a stark future: They could be out of power for years unless they shake up things a lot.
In the 2022 elections, they captured no statewide constitutional offices and lost enough seats in the S.C. House to give Republicans a supermajority that is so big that they don’t need to listen to Democrats at all. In 2024, the Senate is poised to grow similarly — unless Democrats wake up.
To understand how serious the challenge to the state Democratic structure is, all you have to do is spend a few minutes talking with S.C. Sen. Mia McLeod, a lifelong Democrat who dumped the party in January after a frustrating 2022 bid for governor in which she was the first Black woman to run for the office. A state senator, she now identifies as an independent, but still caucuses with the Dems.
“I didn’t take issue with my [Democratic] colleagues in the Senate,” she said. “I took issue with the state party.”
In a Jan. 10 message to supporters, McLeod detailed how she struggled with state party leaders for years to try to get them to focus on and help people of all colors and creeds in the district she represents. The party establishment, she said, has not made any significant changes or won a gubernatorial race in 20 years.
“If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing year after year, election after election, and expecting a different result, then the S.C. Democratic Party is the poster child for what a losing strategy on repeat looks like,” she wrote.
While party leaders bristled then and now at McLeod’s criticisms saying her gubernatorial campaign was flawed, the Democratic establishment needs to pay attention if it wants to remain relevant. It needs to focus on issues that make a difference to base Democratic voters, many of whom are Black like McLeod. They need a clear strategy to ensure that redistricting is fair and issues like wealth and poverty, opportunity for all, access to health care and strengthening of democracy are front and center.
In an interview this week, McLeod said her decision to become an independent was liberating because it allows her to act independently as she always has tried to do.
“What I’m not willing to do is stay on a sinking ship and act like I don’t know that it’s sinking,” she said.
And while she hopes state Democratic leaders get their structural act together to help regular voters, she’s cautious.
“As much as I hope the party will take a new direction and do something differently, I don’t expect that to happen overnight,” she said. “There are great, amazing people on both sides of the aisle.
“I have come to know and love so many Democrats who are in it for the right reason and for that reason, I’m going to continue to support … the majority of whom will be running as Democrats. I don’t feel like I’m at odds with the people of the Democratic Party. They are who I am fighting for.”
Will she ever return to the party? Maybe, because that’s where her heart is: “I would love to have the opportunity to return to the Democratic Party when the Democratic Party is aligned with the people.”
But first, the party has to get its act together better. And they’ll have a chance to hit the restart button in Columbia on April 28.
Andy Brack, recognized in 2022 as the best columnist in South Carolina, is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@charlestoncitypaper.com.
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