People gather on the south side of the Statehouse on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023, for the second inauguration of Gov. Henry McMaster in Columbia, South Carolina. An inaugural ceremony for the winners of this year's statewide contests will be in January 2027. (Photo by Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
South Carolina voters were given an opportunity to vote for dramatic change on June 9.
But despite the anger and strident rhetoric of this election season, voters behaved in a decidedly conventional, sober fashion.
They chose familiarity over fury — and experience over political flame-throwers.
Voters largely rewarded incumbents, favored long-serving politicians with established records and — at least in the highest-profile races — rejected candidates who offered disruption, personal grievance or political spectacle.
The two Republican gubernatorial candidates headed to the June 23 runoff — Lt. Gov. Pam Evette and Attorney General Alan Wilson — are closest to the Columbia establishment and status quo.
Evette has been in office 7½ years, Wilson for 15½.
Voters, meanwhile, rejected the aggressive change agents: businessman Rom Reddy, and U.S. Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman. Statewide, they also rejected the hard-right Freedom Caucus.
Incumbency, of course, has always been an overwhelming force in South Carolina. This is the state that sent the late Sen. Strom Thurmond to Washington for nine terms (two partial) over 48 years.
So, it’s no surprise that Sen. Lindsey Graham, first elected in 2002 to replace Thurmond, defeated five GOP opponents to win the Republican nomination outright without a runoff.
South Carolina remains a deeply conservative state, and the winners generally reflected mainstream conservative politics.
President Donald Trump’s endorsements for Graham and Evette no doubt helped boost their campaigns, but it’s worth noting that Trump favored safe establishment candidates over outsiders.
In Evette’s case, however, the endorsement surprise seemed to anger many Trump supporters in South Carolina.
This runs against a popular narrative about modern politics, particularly within Republican primaries, that promotes insurgency and ideological absolutism as an unstoppable, winning force.
In many states, of course, when voters become angry and deeply dissatisfied with the status quo, they may throw established politicians overboard.
That happens far less in South Carolina.
Of course, I’m speaking of the highest-profile statewide races. In local races, voters may have shown greater inclination for change. In my own Anderson County, for instance, two long-serving incumbents were ousted from County Council.
Yet in the statewide election, South Carolina voters, true to form, appeared more cautious than revolutionary.
The results were the exact opposite of shocking.
Perhaps that should not be surprising. Conservatism, in the traditional sense associated with Edmund Burke, favors stability and institutions while remaining skeptical of abrupt, dramatic change.
That brand of conservatism remains strong in South Carolina.
Seen in that light, South Carolina Republicans acted, as usual, quite conservatively. They chose candidates with records over promises, familiarity over novelty and experience over upheaval.
Democratic voters, too, largely appeared to favor candidates with established political credentials.
State Rep. Jermaine Johnson won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination over two much-better financed candidates: Greenville businessman Billy Webster and Charleston attorney Mullins McLeod.
Money, as always, played a big role in this election but not always a decisive one.
Meanwhile, candidates who leaned most heavily into personal attacks, political theatrics or ideologically combustible appeals often struggled to persuade voters that anger itself was a governing philosophy.
This has been a jaw-droppingly ugly election season, but I’ll give the high-profile winners credit for taking at least a slightly higher road.
Successful candidates generally presented themselves as recognizable, tested and governable — imperfect figures, perhaps, but plausible stewards of public office.
It’s true that South Carolina politics remains rough-edged, partisan and occasionally bruising.
Voter turnout was a disappointing 25%, yet that’s 4 percentage points higher than in 2022, the last time South Carolinians voted for governor, and far better than in 2018, when just 9% of registered voters participated.
If one broad lesson emerged from these primaries, it is that voters showed less appetite for aggressive change than many assumed.
After months of heated rhetoric, South Carolinians quietly cast ballots for candidates who looked familiar, sounded recognizable and promised governance more than upheaval.
For many South Carolinians, that will be reassuring at a time of much political chaos elsewhere in the nation.
Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
