♪ opening music ♪ ♪ <Gavin> Welcome to This Week in South Carolina.

I'm Gavin Jackson.

This week's primary election brought several surprises and losses, including incumbent Congressman Tom Rice from the 7th district.

Several longtime state legislators also lost their seats, and the Associated Press' Jeffrey Collins joins us to discuss those races.

But first, the Associated Press' Meg Kinnard recaps two top congressional races.

Meg, welcome back.

<Meg Kinnard> Always good to be with you, Gavin.

<Gavin> Great.

Well, let's talk about what happened on Tuesday night looking at the Republican congressional primaries starting off in the 7th Congressional District right over there.

The Grand Strand, Myrtle Beach, the Pee Dee, one of the biggest races not only in the state, but nationally that a lot of folks are focusing on.

This dealt with you know, Russell Frey winning outright in a race of seven, including against incumbent Tom Rice, who of course voted to impeach President Donald Trump for inciting the insurrection on January 6.

It's been a long time coming.

This has been something we've been focusing on since the impeachment on January 13, Meg.

Talk to us what happened here and how it all shook out.

<Meg> Going into this race, I think there was kind of a presumption that there would be a run off on the Republican side, Tom Rice had half a dozen GOP challengers, and when you do the math, it just seemed like it might not be possible for one of them to break over that 50% mark, but State Representative Russell Fry really has been on the ground, running his campaign against Rice for almost a year now, which is not something that you really see a lot of times, especially in a primary, here in South Carolina.

We had a lot of members that didn't have any opposition at all at the GOP ballot box, but Tom Rice had plenty, and so going into Tuesday, there was just kind of a thought that we'd be seeing a runoff here in two weeks in the 7th, somebody would have gotten close to Tom Rice, they'd be kind of right there at the top and then maybe in two weeks would be another decision, but that's absolutely not what ended up happening.

Of course, Russell Fry's campaign had been saying for weeks that they really felt confident in his re-elect - in his election.

Tom Rice's folks had said the same thing about his re-elect, but on Tuesday night, we saw Russell Fry get above 50%, actually to 51%, with Tom Rice at just under 25.

So clearly there, the voters in the 7th have shown that they're ready for a change, and they see Russell Fry, as the change, they want to represent them on the Republican side of things.

<Gavin> Meg that was really just, you know, a referendum on Tom Rice.

Just one vote.

I mean, look at a 10 year career in Congress representing the 7th Congressional District voting along party lines, voting with Trump most of the time, all the time.

So it's fascinating to see that they were really just not going to let him slide when it came to that impeachment vote, especially when you look at his, you know, former president's favorability numbers in that district.

<Meg> That's right, the 7th district, all districts in South Carolina are different, but the 7th district is clearly the one that we look at.

GOP chairman Drew McKissick told me yesterday, it's most like the Trump model of what they see there on the ground in the 7th for the Republican party organization.

All of the candidates opposing Tom Rice ran on this impeachment vote.

All of them said that was the reason why voters should choose to sit him down in South Carolina rather than send him back to Washington, and that message clearly resonated, >> Meg, Russell Fry is not the most Trumpian I would say out of the entire field.

He's been in the Statehouse since 2015.

He's the House Majority Whip.

He has some establishment bent to him in a way, but was it more of the fact that he was someone that just wasn't Tom Rice and obviously, Donald Trump endorsed him?

<Meg> I think you hit on it right there.

One he wasn't Tom Rice.

Clearly, Russell Fry is somebody who is well known here in Columbia among legislators.

He does represent his party in a majority whip situation in the Statehouse.

So he's not an outsider.

He's not a fringe candidate.

He does have a lot of ties to the establishment, but he's not Tom Rice, and he also did have the backing of former President Donald Trump, which is something that does resonate and identify with voters in that district, where Donald Trump won very handily, both times that he was on the ballot in the general election, Russell Fry had a good campaign.

He ran it well.

He had a lot of ads that, in his own admission, were full of a lot of dad jokes and zingers, but they made Fry very relatable to people and that was always something that Tom Rice said that he represented that he was a very relatable person to a lot of these voters, but Russell Fry to his own credit, he used a lot of those things in his toolbox to make his best argument to voters and they rewarded him for it.

<Gavin> Tom Rice becoming the first Republican who voted to impeach President Donald Trump to fall in the primaries here.

Obviously, out of those 10 only four not running again, so he's that first one to fall there, but further down the coast, we did see that President Donald Trump's endorsed candidate did not win.

We're talking with the 1st Congressional District with Nancy Mace and Katie Arrington, Arrington being that one endorsed by President Trump.

What happened there?

Talk to us about the differences between those two districts.

>> Absolutely, as we talked about, the 7th district is one that is a little bit more identifiable in terms of having perhaps more voters who would represent Donald Trump's side of things who would side with him.

In the 1st district though we have a lot of different people.

That district has changed political hands twice.

It has many cycles, and so there are some people who always like to portray it as more purple, more willing to change depending on identifying with certain candidates, and maybe just voting on issues more than personalities.

We definitely had two big personalities though, in the 1st district race with Congresswoman Nancy Mace and former State Representative Katie Arrington.

A lot of the issues, though, are things on which they agree.

They both supported completion of the border wall, one of Donald Trump's signature policies when he was in office, and you know, when I talked to voters when I hear from them, they're like, I don't see a whole lot of differences on the issues between these two, but for some people, they identified more with the person that the former president had endorsed, Katie Arrington.

On the other side, though, I hear from just as many people who like what Nancy Mace has done in Washington, that she's been willing to talk to Democrats.

She's been willing to go in bipartisan ways across the aisle and actually get measures through Congress, and so for those voters, clearly, they're dealing with a lot of different factors, but it ended up with a victory for Nancy Mace by about eight points, which is exactly where she had been pinpointing it in our conversations leading into Tuesday.

<Gavin> But Meg, when we look at that, you know, Mace was very critical of the former president, especially after January 6.

She had just gotten sworn to Congress days before.

What's the difference?

Or is it just because she did not vote to impeach the president.

Was it that she was just highly critical that led to her being able to navigate this primary better than Rice.

<Meg> That certainly has something to do with it, and what you'll hear from voters is even if they did like Donald Trump, and did support him in his own campaigns, they could kind of understand where somebody might disagree with the role that he played in January 6, and the Capitol violence, and so even someone who would self identify as a Trump supporter, and even if they planned on maybe voting for him again, they could see where she was coming from in terms of what she said, related to his relationship to everything that happened that day.

Clearly, also, she didn't support impeachment.

Who knows what role that could have played if she had been on the Tom rice side of that vote, but all in all, even for people who might have supported Donald Trump and might think that he is the candidate they would want, they're not necessarily going to go down the further ballot and support anybody that he just kind of checks off in his column.

<Gavin> And a big name we saw getting involved in this race was former governor and US United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, really throwing her weight around in this race.

Tell us about that, what role, What difference maybe that made for Mace.

<Meg> Nikki Haley did come out for Nancy Mace, she filmed a campaign ad for her and spent the closing two days of the primary election on the trail with her.

We saw her in the Low country.

She was also further down the coast in the Hilton Head area, and she's really kind of putting her money where her mouth is in terms of supporting Nancy Mace, both as her constituents as Nikki Haley now lives in the Charleston area, but also as someone that she sees, should be taking the policies and ideas that she has to Washington.

Nikki Haley, obviously left office here before the end of her term, but she's remained pretty popular, especially in that Charleston area, and she has been increasing her visibility as maybe she's making her own future political plans.

So you know, endorsements, sometimes it's hard to say exactly what role they play in any of these elections, whether you're Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, or someone else, but obviously, if you did support Nikki Haley, and you did think that she was a good look for South Carolina and also on the national stage, then if she's holding hands with a candidate and coming out and saying, This is somebody that I really think would be a good person to represent us in Washington, then that's going to make a difference for you, and also now with this victory, maybe that can make a difference for Nikki Haley, if she does decide to make those further political moves that we keep talking about.

<Gavin> Exactly.

Especially with that fundraiser that she had for Nancy Mace before President Donald Trump came into town.

Donald Trump never came back to town, after March.

>> We kind of been anticipating that maybe we would see Donald Trump show up.

He was here in March, like you say, but then also never really came to the Charleston area.

Earlier, he was in the 7th district and kind of, maybe we'll see him pop up in the 1st to do more of a direct support of Katie Arrington.

There was a tele-Town Hall where he talked about both Arrington and Fry, as well as some messages sent out email endorsements, some of the posts on truth social that he's using now that he's not on Twitter, but that's pretty much all we saw.

We didn't see any transfers from his massive campaign account, his PAC that he's still using and has been utilizing in some areas but not here, and so there were some that worried does that show the former president backing off of his support of Katie Arrington or Russell Fry.

We did see an after Election Day message on late Tuesday and then again on early Wednesday, with the former president saying congratulations to Nancy Mace and Katie Arrington was a long shot, and she ran a really hard campaign, but she just didn't make it this time.

So that's kind of a tempered message from the foreign president about his own role in that campaign.

Again, not wanting to look at that loss on primary night at least in terms of his chosen candidates, as something that he could see as a mark against himself.

<Gavin> That's something we're going to see these two candidates, of course, Nancy Mace, who's now the Republican nominee, and Katie Arrington, who challenged her, who lost on Tuesday, now having some unity together as they're going to go forward.

backing each other.

Katie Arrington backing Nancy Mace as she faces off against Annie Andrews, the Democrat in this race come November.

So, a lot to be watching over the next coming months.

We'll be doing it with you Meg Kinnard with the Associated Press.

Always, thanks for coming on the show.

>> Thanks for having me.

Good to see you.

<Gavin> For more on election night coverage, I'm joined by Jeffrey Collins.

He's a State House and Government Reporter for the Associated Press based here in Columbia.

Hey, Jeffrey.

<Jeffrey Collins> Hey, Gavin, how are you today?

<Gavin> I'm great.

We've made it through Election Day, and we're here to tell the tale.

<Jeffrey> Excellent.

Yeah.

You still got the primaries coming up.

<Gavin> Yep.

The general election.

Right.

So, let's look at the big statewide, one of the big statewide races that we saw take place Tuesday night, and that was for the Superintendent of Education.

Look at the Republican primary for that one.

There are six candidates there, and two of them are now in a runoff.

Tell us about those two candidates and what happened during that race.

<Jeffrey> So, on the Republican side, the runoff will be between the - Ellen Weaver and Kathy Maness.

Kathy Maness has been a longtime education advocate, and Ellen Weaver was education oversight committee chairwoman for a while so, but what that race has kind of come down to is most of the Republican establishment, your Republican political leaders and everything have fallen on the side of Ellen Weaver, whereas Kathy Maness, has put herself in position of being a teacher advocate and educator advocate, somebody that has worked in schools or worked with schools for decades and knows it from that side of the fence.

So, it'll be a very interesting run off, you know, Maness won with 30% of the vote.

She did pretty well, you know, having a significant lead over Weaver but it seems like in that race, all the other candidates and I believe there are about a half dozen other candidates, will probably fall into Weaver's camp, because that's the side that they kind of go on, is that, you know, we need to watch out for critical race theory in schools we need to be more cognizant of and more in control of what gets taught, that kind of thing.

So, I have a feeling there.

Those folks are going to fall in line with Weaver.

We can see if Kathy Maness can improve her lead and get some more support.

<Gavin> Yeah, especially since Kathy Maness we saw get the support of the Superintendent of Education right now, Molly Spearman who's retiring, and then of course, Ellen Weaver, with this curve ball still doesn't have a master's degree, which is a requirement to be State Superintendent of Education, but it's expected that she should have one by election day, apparently.

<Jeffrey> We'll see.

You know, the... stories about the - Post and Courier didn't come out with the stories about the education requirement until after filing.

So, that sent everything scrambling, and so Ellen Weaver has to get a master's degree from when she started in early April, by November now, there is some question.

This has never been there's no law in South Carolina that says exactly what has to happen if a candidate doesn't ...have the qualifications.

So, we may end up in a court fight.

There may be - I don't - I'm not exactly sure what the deadline is, where she has to get the master's degree.

Is it November on the election day?

Is it when she would be sworn into office in January?

There's a lot of swirling legal questions too.

<Gavin> Yeah, the state election commission I think says certification language has a meets or will meet clause.

So, probably like you're saying we're going to see some fun legal fights come November.

<Jeffrey> If she wins.

If she loses the runoff, then that becomes a moot question, because Kathy Maness does have an advanced degree.

<Gavin> It will be difficult for Democrats to try and take this position too.

We did see Lisa Ellis, a Democrat there, win this outright in a three way race with even including representative Jerry Govan, who came in last and third place there too.

So, it will be an interesting matchup in the fall, whoever wins the vote, - >> Well, yeah, and Lisa Ellis is a very interesting candidate.

She was the founder of the teacher advocacy group SC for Ed that had the huge rally at the Statehouse in 2019.

She is you know, I mean, that...group of teachers is very much behind her and supporting her and you know, now if it's a Kathy Maness - Liss Ellis race, then there are educators, kind of the folks that are in that kind of camp have a choice.

It would be a very stark, though choice if it's Ellen Weaver and Lisa Ellis.

I mean, that's going to be a very interesting race if it comes down, either way.

<Gavin> Another uphill battle for statewide Democrats.

We're looking at the Democratic gubernatorial race.

We saw former 1st... Congressional District Congressman, Joe Cunningham, beating State Senator Mia McLeod outright 56% to 31% in a field of five.

Tell us a little about that race, Jeffrey, the different campaigns dollars we saw at play there and how this came to be.

<Jeffrey> Joe Cunningham ran what people would consider a traditional Democratic race, raising money, putting, you know, if you get enough, put ads on television, go to big events, you know, make sure you're making good relationships with reporters and newspapers and television stations and things like that.

The McLeod camp, they ran a little less traditional, more social media based, more smaller group kind of a campaign, and in the end, I mean, the results are the results, and, you know, there's also a difference in their campaign styles.

I mean, both of them campaigned against Henry McMaster.

They really didn't go after each other, but, you know, Cunningham was more of a, you know, here's what I'm thinking, here's my youthfulness I have, you know, I'm 35 years younger than Henry McMaster, whereas Mia McLeod kind of pointed out that she would, she was the first black woman to run for governor and obviously, would be the first African American Governor we had in this state, and, you know, she and that was kind of her was, you know, I can and, you know, I have, she still had her campaign ideas.

One was a $15 minimum wage, but there was that little disconnect too, between the two of them, and ultimately, I mean, Cunningham, I think got 56% 57% of the vote for an outright win in a five way primary.

That's an impressive result.

<Gavin> Yeah, and it was interesting, you know, you mentioned that $15 minimum wage.

That was something she was really trying to ding him on, not only on the campaign trail, but we saw during the debate as well, you know, something, a vote he took in Congress when he was up there for two years.

So it's interesting to see that, that was a big issue, but something that's been having a lot of pushback here on the trail as well, but it's she kept referring to him as you know, Republican light, this more moderate approach, and...

I think that's an interesting comparison, when you look at just how hard it is for a Democrat to win in this state, and you really can't be all the way to the left, or even too progressive in many ways, if you're going to even try make a dent in winning, especially when we're talking about people when there's margins of +10%, plus percent, come the general election.

<Jeffrey> I think two elections, maybe three at the most since Jim Hodges won, the Democrats have been within 10 percentage points.

I mean, McLeod does have a point.

I mean...there is, I mean, think about the Democratic nominees since Hodges, you know, they were all very similar legislative based, you know, White men, and they tended to, as you said, had moderate positions that are hoping to bring in some Republicans to the fold, and Joe Cunningham is like that.

Now, there's some key differences.

I mean, Joe Cunningham supports legalizing marijuana, and sports gambling and some issues that might not, that might be a little bit sketchy or a little bit too... <Gavin> Yeah, yeah.

>>But in Joe's case, I think one of the more interesting things in Joe Cunningham's case will be abortion, and he's hinted at it a couple of times, because the South Carolina General Assembly is not quite two thirds Republican, and if they were to pass an abortion bill with Joe Cunningham as a Democratic governor, he could veto it and there's not enough Republicans solely to override that veto.

I suspect that's going to be one message he hammers home during this campaign.

<Gavin> Yeah, we definitely saw him use his pen on the debate stage and in some commercials about that.

So it'll be interesting to see, because that is going to be the topic in this off season that we're in right now, too, with lawmakers looking to see what they can do, once the supreme court is expected to make that decision, overturning Roe and we you know, we have our six week abortion ban that will eventually take effect at that point, too.

So, if they build upon that law, like we're talking about here, that's when we might see some, some veto action, but of course, that would be a long way.

We didn't have a governor who's a Democrat, first and that hasn't happened in 25 years, so... <Jeffrey> and that's a tough road.

I mean, look at any statewide...race, in the last 20 years in South Carolina, I mean, you know, Democrats in any race, whether they have a really good candidate or not, they struggle to get within four or five points.

It's just the makeup of the state now.

I mean, it's that's just where the Democrats begin with maybe 40%, 41% of the vote and they have to build off that whereas for Republicans, they start with a much bigger base.

<Gavin> Exactly.

So, Jeffrey, let's talk about the Statehouse.

You know, we saw all House representatives are up for re-election this year, all 124 of them, but we're talking about primaries, and right now, we looked at some I think there's 37 contested Republican races and 12 democratic contested races, and there were about a dozen or so folks that did not run for re-election, but what were some surprises for you when you looked at the Republican side of the ticket Tuesday night?

<Jeffrey> The big surprise was, you know, the chairwoman of the Education Committee, Rita Allison lost her bid for re-election in the Republican primary.

I mean, she's been, I think, 28 years total in the Statehouse.

She had a stint of about a decade, in the last century, I think, and then she, you know, she had another 14 years, I think, since 2008, in her current stint, and she's the chairwoman of one of the most important House committees.

She had been there a long time.

She was well liked in the House as well.

So, that was a big surprise.

Brian White, who's a former Ways and Means Committee Chairman before he was taken off that post by Jay Lucas, former speaker, Jay Lucas, he lost his race.

He'd been in there since 2000.

So those are probably the two biggest surprises.

There were a few more Republicans, they got knocked off too, and it seemed like the challenge for most of them were people that said they weren't conservative enough or that they weren't.

They weren't passing the kind of conservative legislation that some people that are on the farthest side of right side of the spectrum, won.

<Gavin> - Jeffrey, I'm sure you'll be doing some takeout pieces on this as we go forward, because there's it seems like there's a shift going on, of course, with the retirements and the new leadership and there's concern about South Carolina becoming more like DC even though the legislature prides itself on not being DC.

It seems like we're getting to this point, now.

We're taking out people like Rita Allison, who was over the Education Committee, and even pushed conservative issues, big hot button conservative issues this past session.

<Jeffrey> Well, in South Carolina, that's part, you know, part of what leadership on both the House and the Senate talk about is, we're not like DC.

We have a thoughtful deliberative legislature.

We get along.

We don't just snipe at each other, but you know, in a lot of these, but that got used against a lot of these Republican candidates who lost.

I mean, you were just, you know, you'd get called a Republican in name only, or a rhino, you're too liberal or something like that.

I mean, that one of the more interesting components of the 2000s, or the 2023, General Assembly, especially in the House will be, how does these conservative members assimilate into it?

Or do they just start throwing bombs and making life very tough for the Republican majority?

I mean, is there going to be a fracture there that makes it hard to get things accomplished in the House?

<Gavin> You look at some close races too, like Michael Caskey, winning by 26 votes, you know, in a primary.

So I think, when you start figuring maybe who ran who against them, there's going to be some possible changes, some fissures, like you're talking about there, too, but when we look at the Demo- - go ahead, Jeffrey.

<Jeffrey> I was going to say that, that the people, a lot of those opponents had support from House members, from the House members that are very conservative.

I mean, it wasn't like, you know, it may have been a little bit a little quiet, but there were some people that wanted to see those challenges win in the House itself.

<Gavin> It makes for an awkward working environment nonetheless.

(laughs) But Jeffrey I want to talk about the Democrats too, because they had some moments there as well.

You know, we saw a narrow win there for Jermaine Johnson over Wendy Brawley district 70, that's being consolidated.

We're also seeing some movements there between Cesar McKnight and Roger Kirby.

So again, a lot of redistricting at play here when it comes to some of these head on Democrat races in the House.

<Jeffrey> Democrats when they lost it was because they got put in the same district essentially.

It would be what looks like their losses are at least as far in the primary goes.

The Richland County one between Wendy Brawley and Jermaine Johnson.

That one was interesting, in part because, you know, they threw them in the same district, but they, actually may be in a different district in 2022.

There's 2024.

They're still working on a potential slight change to the redistricting map that would actually pull them back apart.

So, the loser may end up back in their regular district in 2024.

Stay tuned on that.

Cesar McKnight and Roger Kirby, that was I think, last time I checked, it was a four vote difference.

There's very little between them, but there was a third candidate that got just enough votes to force that into a runoff.

So, you know, for the political scientist folks out there, that will be a fascinating study on how do you encourage voters to come back out for the runoff because essentially, the regular primary was a draw.

So, how do you redo this and win with a second chance?

<Gavin> We're talking about turnout.

I want to wrap up really quick, but it's hard enough to get people to vote in a primary, I can't even imagine a runoff, but this is the first time we had early voting in the State, Jeffrey, and it seemed to have gone pretty smoothly with about 100,000 ballots cast before the election, but overall participation was about a 70%.

That's pretty paltry out there.

So overall, just thoughts on how early voting went, and it seems like everyone's pretty hunky dory with that new election integrity bill.

<Jeffrey> Yeah, from all accounts early voting was very well, if there was any problems, it was because some people wished there were more sites open.

I know Charleston County wanted to do their mobile voting site where they are able to, you know, take like a polling place and essentially move it around the county, so it doesn't have to be in the same static location every day, but there was some questions on whether or not the new law allowed that.

So, I suspect there'll be some stuff done in the General Assembly to clarify whether or not that's okay, next year, but turnout overall was pretty dim.

I mean, there was some ...competitive races too.

So I mean, you know, it's one of those questions we always have to deal with is how do we encourage people to vote?

It's the way that you kind of change your government and what you want done, and I mean, that's - I mean, it was as low, - you know, South Carolina's added people since from 2018 to 2022, but Democratic turnout between those four years dropped like 60,000 votes and Republicans were about the same.

I mean, that's bad.

<Gavin> Yeah.

Yeah, and just last question, Jeffrey, lawmakers are back in Columbia this week to take up the budget to approve it.

I want to just see what the top big ticket items were in that budget now that's been finalized and sent to the governor.

<Jeffrey> The biggest item is both a tax rebate and a tax cut.

The top tax bracket in South Carolina will drop from 7% to 6.5%.

In the year right now, we're paying taxes, and then every - There's going to be a rebate of up to $800.

Basically, you'll get whatever you pay into your state income tax.

You will get back up to $800 for the previous tax year, and as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Harvey Peeler pointed out, checks will be going out either in late November, or early December, just in time for Christmas.

<Gavin> Merry Christmas, South Carolina.

<Jeffrey> Ho!

Ho!

Ho!

>> That's State House reporter with the Associated Press, Jeffrey Collins, Jeffrey, always great catching up with you.

<Jeffrey> Great to talk to you Gavin.

Thank you.

>> To stay up to date with the latest news throughout the week.

Check out the South Carolina Lede.

It's a podcast that I host on Tuesdays and Saturdays that you can find on South Carolina public radio.org or wherever you find podcasts.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina.

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