STATEHOUSE REPORT | ISSUE 23.24 | June 14, 2024
BIG STORY: Trumpism was big winner in S.C. primaries, analysts say
MORE NEWS: New advocacy group looks to lower liquor liability costs
LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: Man of convictions
COMMENTARY, Brack: Turnout, scattered strategies created odd primary
SPOTLIGHT: S.C. Farm Bureau
MYSTERY PHOTO: Buzz, buzz
FEEDBACK: Reading books helps kids learn critical thinking
Trumpism was big winner in S.C. primaries, some say
By Jack O’Toole | The 2024 South Carolina primary season ended Tuesday night with dozens of freshly-minted Republican and Democratic nominees but, analysts say, only one big winner — former President Donald J. Trump.
Though his name wasn’t on any June 11 ballot, GOP candidates who embraced Trump’s fiery brand of right-wing populism defeated Republican regulars in high-profile races from the Lowcountry to the Upstate.
“In the Republican primaries, it was the Trumpists versus the Supertrumpists,” said Neal Thigpen, a dean of S.C. political scientists and an early architect of the modern Palmetto State GOP. “And the Supertrumpists won.”
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats had a quieter night with lower intraparty stakes and fewer hard-fought contests. But party leaders say they’ve nominated strong candidates in districts across the state.
“There are some very good Democratic candidates on the ballot who are going to put together good general election campaigns,” said former state Democratic party chair Trav Robertson, adding that he expects the party to pick up seats in the legislature and at the local level. “That’s going to be exciting.”
The Republicans: Freedom Caucus rises, sister senators fall
For Republicans, the big story was the continued rise of the S.C. Freedom Caucus, a combative hard-right faction of GOP legislators who have frustrated and sometimes infuriated party leaders since its founding in 2022.
Targeted for defeat in a well-financed statewide campaign led by powerful House Speaker Murrell Smith, caucus members successfully defended all of their incumbents who were running Tuesday night. They didn’t, however, make headway in federal politics as two Freedom Caucus members lost in primary battles in the Upstate’s Third and Fourth GOP primaries for U.S. House.
In those races, Trump endorsed their opponents. In the Fourth District, incumbent Rep. William Timmons defeated the Freedom Caucus chairman, state Rep. Adam Morgan. And in the Third, state Rep. Stewart Jones, another caucus member, failed to make the runoff with Trump-endorsee Mark Burns and Sheri Biggs.
Meanwhile, they managed to knock off two members of Smith’s leadership team, Assistant Majority Leader Jay West (R-Anderson) and Rep. Bill Sandifer (R-Oconee), on their way to picking three seats overall, with two additional caucus members still alive in runoffs.
In a social media post, the Freedom Caucus called its victory a “huge night for the conservative movement in S.C.”
“When elected officials actually fight for the conservative values they hold, they get rewarded by Republican voters,” the message said. “The state Freedom Caucus movement continues to grow stronger with every election.”
Sister senators have trouble, low turnout
In addition to the Freedom Caucus wins, Tuesday saw the defeat of two of the three Republican “sister senators” who voted against the state’s strict abortion ban in 2023.
In Charleston, Sen. Sandy Senn fell to hardline S.C. House Republican Matt Lieber by 31 votes, while Kershaw Sen. Penry Gustafson got crushed by strongly pro-life candidate Allen Blackman. A third sister senator, Katrina Shealy of Lexington County, is facing a runoff with challenger Carlisle Kennedy on June 25.
In assessing the results, longtime S.C. Republican consultant Chip Felkel noted the unusually low 13.6% turnout in Tuesday’s elections, which amplifies the votes of those most motivated to get to the polls.
“You clearly had an angry electorate,” he told Statehouse Report. “And the establishment candidates got beat.”
As a result, political observers say, the state’s dominant political party continued its move toward a more confrontational, hard-edged style of politics characterized by all-or-nothing legislative tactics and performative outrage.
“You’re seeing Trumpism permeate at the state level,” College of Charleston political scientist Karyn Amira told Statehouse Report. “And my feeling is that it will probably continue to become more extreme as they look for people who are increasingly loyal and pure for this brand of politics.”
The Democrats: A big name goes down
On the Democratic side, party officials say they’ve nominated strong candidates in several local races, including former International African American Museum head Michael B. Moore, who’s challenging incumbent GOP U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace in the First District.
But perhaps the biggest news of the night was Calhoun County state Rep. Russell Ott’s narrow win over Richland Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a high-profile attorney and fixture in state party politics for more than thirty years.
The unusually tough primary race saw both candidates throw haymakers from the start, with Harpootlian attacking Ott for voting against abortion rights, and Ott criticizing Harpootian’s defense of infamous murderer Alex Murdaugh.
On election night, the tight race came down to Ott’s home of Calhoun County, which turned out in higher-than-average numbers for the local favorite son, giving Ott the win.
At a press conference the next morning, Harpootlian pledged to support Ott in the general election, and drew a sharp distinction between his conduct and President Trump’s after his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.
“We went through a process yesterday [and] I lost,” he said. “The process worked. I’m not accusing anybody of stealing anything. I’m not having a temper tantrum. I’m not expressing some doubt in our system.”
But the 75-year-old Democratic Party warhorse made a point of closing what may be his last campaign with a smile.
“The tragedy from yesterday is that such a promising political future was nipped so early in the bud,” he said.
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New group looks to lower liquor liability costs
By Jack O’Toole | A new advocacy group says it’s time for members of the S.C. legislature to set aside their differences on lawsuit reform and deliver relief to bar and restaurant owners facing ruinous liquor liability bills.
According to a June 10 release, the South Carolina Bar and Tavern Association was formed in the past month by bar and brewery owners, insurance agents and others who are directly affected by the state’s food and beverage industry.
First on the new group’s agenda is a push to reform the state’s liquor liability laws, which they say have led to the closure of several bars and restaurants across the state due to high insurance costs.
With that goal in mind, they plan to present legislators with a petition supporting immediate reform when the General Assembly reconvenes in a special session next week.
“We currently have over a thousand signatures from across the state and we’re garnering more every day,” association head Chris Smith told Statehouse Report. “We’re going to hand-deliver these to the governor’s office and the Senate president and the House leadership on June 18.”
The group hopes to convince legislators to revive S. 533, dubbed the S.C. Justice Act by supporters. It’s a broad tort reform bill that failed to win final passage in this year’s legislative session. As a result, any effort to resuscitate it would require a two-thirds supermajority vote in both chambers.
Failing that, Smith says his group is committed to coming back next year, perhaps with a narrower reform bill that’s tailored to the specific problems of bar and restaurant owners.
“So many places are closing at this point, I’m open to doing whatever it takes to get something done,” Smith said.
In other recent news
S.C. budget to ban cellphones in K-12 schools. Public school students across South Carolina will be barred from using their cellphones during the school day under a clause legislators agreed to add to the state spending plan Thursday.
Abortion rates in S.C. fell dramatically after state ban. The number of abortions provided in South Carolina plummeted by about 80% following the implementation of the state’s six-week abortion ban in August 2023, new state data shows.
S.C. taxpayers spending $200K on new environmental agency logo. South Carolina taxpayers have spent $20,000 for a marketing company to design a logo for a new state agency that will replace the Department of Health and Environmental Control’s environmental division.
S.C. has surplus in teacher loan repayments as teachers leave. The state’s teaching shortage has gotten so bad, nearly all subjects are now considered “critical,” allowing teachers to get their loans repaid no matter where they work.
S.C. ranks among worst states for child care. Children in South Carolina fared worse than the national averages in all but two of 16 measures of health, economic well-being, education and family in 2022, according to the latest Kids Count Data Book by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Overall, South Carolina ranked 40th in the country.
Man of convictions
Nationally award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail always has an interesting take. This week, he offers a pun on the word “conviction.” What do you think – love the cartoon? Hate it? Send your thoughts to feedback@statehousereport.com.
Turnout, scattered strategies created odd primary
By Andy Brack | Maybe the biggest story of the June 11 primary elections is that a turned-off electorate doesn’t turn out to vote.
Participation statewide was abysmal, as only 13.6% of registered voters – about 440,000 out of 3.2 million – went to the polls.
But in some places, the apathy was so bad that participation didn’t get out of the single digits. Just look at turnout in Georgetown County (5.4%), Florence County (8.1%) and Horry County (8.5%). In those places, there wasn’t enough competition on the ballots to attract voters.
Or maybe they were just sick and tired of the whole mess. Look at the First Congressional District race where Republicans reportedly dropped more than $8 million into television, digital and other outreach efforts to get people to pick incumbent Nancy Mace or challengers Catherine Templeton or Bill Young. But voting wasn’t much better than the state average with turnout at 13% in Charleston County, 14.8% in Beaufort County, 13.5% in Dorchester County and 12.1% in Berkeley County.
The First District race among Democrats was notable for the opposite – the comparatively paltry amount of money spent and almost invisible television presence by candidates Michael B. Moore and Mac Deford. They did what they could, but they didn’t excite turnout, perhaps proving that going on TV is more important than trying to reach masses of voters by attending party functions, parades, community meetings, garden parties and living room visits.
There was more excitement in the Upstate where hard-right Freedom Caucus House candidates clashed with more than two dozen challengers. And there was an open seat in the Third Congressional District race and an interesting dynamic in the Fourth District (an incumbent accused of an extramarital affair in the conservative region). County participation was higher than this year’s average – Greenville (17.4%), Oconee (21.5%), Spartanburg (15.6%), Greenwood (18.1%) and Anderson (20.5%), but it’s pretty sad when the high participation rate is one in five registered voters.
So the big winner was apathy.
And the biggest loser seemed to be the mainstream Republican establishment, which wasn’t able to make much of a dent in reducing the presence of the gadfly S.C. Freedom Caucus, devoted to using outrageous social conservatism to roil more traditional Republicans.
Perhaps if more center-right Republicans focused their efforts on taking out the leaders of the caucus, they would have saved the General Assembly from two coming years of antics and stunts.
They should have focused on better strategies instead of splitting resources. That’s what the caucus did in targeting two Upstate House members. And it worked – they “primaried” two House veterans, House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee Chairman Bill Sandifer of Seneca and Assistant Majority Leader Jay West of Belton.
Another theory in an apathetic political environment brimming with negativity: Perhaps new gerrymandered lines that took 30,000 Black voters out of the First District and rearranged legislative districts in new ways created so much confusion that incumbents really suffered from the loss of longtime base voters.
That is what seems to have happened when Charleston got a new Senate district thanks to increases in population. But when the GOP crafted a new district for West Ashley and James Island, two things happened. First, Sen. Sandy Senn lost her James Island base as the district shifted west into areas she wasn’t as well known. And second as a result of that newly-created district, former state Democratic Party chairman and Sen. Dick Hartpootlian got moved into a Midlands Senate district with many more rural voters.
Result? Senn lost in unofficial results by 31 votes of 7,815 cast to uber-conservative GOP Rep. Matt Leber of Johns Island and Hartpootlian fell short by 120 votes out of 4,708 cast to Rep. Russell Ott, a Calhoun County Democrat with strong ties to agriculture.
June 11 won’t be a day to remember – except for mainstream candidates and incumbents who want to know what not to do in primary elections.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
S.C. Farm Bureau
Statehouse Report is provided for free to thousands of subscribers thanks to the generosity of our underwriters. Today we shine a spotlight on our newest underwriter, S.C. Farm Bureau. It is a grassroots, non-profit organization that celebrates and supports family farmers, locally-grown food and rural lands through legislative advocacy, education and community outreach.
S.C. Farm Bureau’s alliance of nearly 100,000 members includes everyone from foodies and fishermen to lawyers, restaurateurs, entrepreneurs, community leaders, and of course, farmers. By connecting farmers to the larger community, the organization cultivates understanding about agriculture’s importance to our local economies. The S.C. Farm Bureau explains its mission: “We deepen our collective knowledge of who, where and how food grows. We empower people to make informed choices. We grow mutually-beneficial relationships. And, we ensure the future of the family farms, locally-grown food and the rural South Carolina lands we love.”
- To learn more about S.C. Farm Bureau’s programs, click here.
- To view media and publications, click here
- For policy and legislation, click here.
Buzz, buzz
Here’s an interesting photo of a sculpture. What and where is it? Why might it have relevance this week? Send your name, hometown and guess to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Last week’s mystery, “Modern portrait,” showed a painting that won second place in the 2024 Piccolo Spoleto Juried Art Exhibition,m as explained by Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas, who wrote of the “oil-on-linen painting called Mutation by Rebecca Waechter, a local Johns Island artist who lives and works in Charleston … Mutation is part of her recent series Modern Icons, Rebecca where each work of art represents Rebecca’s experience as a former therapist with an anxiety disorder and depicts unique aspects of anxiety through subtle symbolism in a portraiture style.z”
Others who correctly identified the painting were Elizabeth Jones and Jay Altman, both of Columbia; David Lupo of Mount Pleasant; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; and Pat Keadle of Perry.
- Send us a mystery picture. If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com and mark it as a photo submission. Thanks.
Reading books helps kids learn critical thinking
To the editor:
In 1999, school librarians were reluctant to put the Harry Potter series on their bookshelves, fearing parental complaints about witchcraft. We’ve come a long way.
Today, our legislature is willing to set us back to those times. Reading books on difficult subjects allows teachers to teach our children to think critically. We are not protecting our kids from unpleasant or controversial issues by hiding those issues; instead, we are making our children more vulnerable and more likely to be led by the loudest voices.
We don’t need to be afraid of exposing our kids to ideas. We should welcome the opportunity for them to read about, think about and analyze those difficult topics, because at some point they will have to be making decisions on their own.
– Agnes Pomata, Wadmalaw Island, S.C.
Send us your thoughts
We encourage you to send in your thoughts about policy and politics impacting South Carolina. We’ve gotten some letters in the last few weeks – some positive, others nasty. We print non-defamatory comments, but unless you provide your contact information – name and hometown, plus a phone number used only by us for verification – we can’t publish your thoughts.
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