Sen. Dick Harpootlian is seen during a South Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee meeting in Columbia, S.C. on Tuesday, March 15, 2022. (Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — Midlands voters on Tuesday ousted the former state Democratic Party chairman who gained national notoriety as lawyer to Alex Murdaugh, in what had become one of the most closely-watched Democratic contests in South Carolina.
But it really wasn’t a good night for several GOP incumbents. In the House, several Republicans were ousted by challengers aligned with the hardline Freedom Caucus, which will likely increase the GOP vs. GOP sniping in that chamber. Incumbents tossed included a longtime Upstate chairman.
And the winners in the Senate almost guarantee an all-out ban on abortion will be back on the GOP agenda next year.
In the race to take over a redrawn Columbia-area Senate district, Rep. Russell Ott, D-St. Matthews, narrowly beat Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Columbia. They were vying for the seat of Sen. Nikki Setzler, the state’s longest serving legislator, who’s retiring after 48 years in the upper chamber.
The post-census redrawing of district lines moved that seat more into Calhoun County, which Ott and his father — former House Minority Leader Harry Ott — have collectively represented for 26 years.
Harpootlian hammered Russell Ott for voting with Republicans on anti-abortion laws over the years, a major issue for Democrats in the solid blue neighborhoods of downtown Columbia.
He painted Ott as a flip-flopper. In February of 2021, Ott voted for the Legislature’s first law that banned abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, which made the law more than an ideological exercise, Ott has voted against Republicans’ abortion bans. He’s also worked to expand women’s access to birth control.
Ott, a well-liked Calhoun County farmer, in turn said Harpootlian was not making an effort to represent the whole district. He took him to task for his work representing Murdaugh, who was ultimately convicted of killing his wife and son, in a trial that took him away from the Statehouse for weeks at a time. Ott also knocked the high-profile lawyer’s penchant for colorful language.
Ultimately, Harpootlian said his campaign hit its goals for votes in Richland and Lexington Counties, where he’s known best. But Calhoun, Ott’s home turf, saw a much higher-than-expected turnout for its native son. He carried the rural vote, which pushed him to a 120-vote win over Harpootlian.
“I think the folks in Calhoun County want a senator, they certainly expressed that with their votes yesterday,” he said.
In a press conference Wednesday morning, Harpootlian conceded to Ott and said he’d support him in November.
“We went through a process yesterday; I lost,” Harpootlian 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.”
The senator had served in the chamber since a special election in 2018, when he flipped a Senate seat held by a Republican for decades. His prior political stints included a seat on Richland County Council; solicitor of the Fifth Circuit, which includes Richland and Kershaw counties; and two separate terms as state Democratic Party chairman.
The post-census redistricting officially sent his Senate seat to the Lowcountry.
Harpootlian, whose wife is the ambassador to Slovenia, said he doesn’t know what he’ll do next, other than run his law firm.
“The tragedy from yesterday was such a promising political future was nipped so early in the bud,” the 75-year-old joked.
Rep. Russell Ott is seen during a House of Representatives session in Columbia, S.C. on Tuesday, March 29, 2022. (Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)
Who Ott will face in the historically purple district come November remains to be seen. Republican candidates Jason Guerry, who owns a construction company, and Chris Smith, a retired real estate agent who bills himself as a staunch conservative, will be decided in a run-off.
Pulling to the right
Meanwhile, across the Upstate, far-right candidates backed by the House Freedom Caucus flipped three seats held by majority GOP caucus incumbents.
Despite efforts by Republican leaders to shrink the caucus that’s been bashing them in the chamber and on social media, the primary results instead grew their ranks.
Less than 60 votes separated 30-year veteran Rep. Bill Sandifer, R-Seneca, from Freedom Caucus backed challenger Adam Duncan, a wrestling coach from Seneca who has not previously held office.
Sandifer has been chairman of the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee for 16 years.
Assistant Majority Leader Jay West, R-Belton, too was ousted by Thomas Gilreath, a former National Guardsman and farmer from Belton who runs a grading and paving company.
And Rep. Jerry Carter, R-Clemson, lost to Phillip Bowers.
Carter previously defeated Bowers, a former Pickens County School Board member, in the June 2020 GOP primary. The seat has historically been held by a moderate Republican. Bowers will face Democrat Eunice Lehmacher in November.
“We hated to lose three good members, but that’s the world of politics,” said Majority Leader David Hiott. “Anytime you have elections, sometimes you have turnover.”
Hiott said the Freedom Caucus wins would not change much for the House Majority Caucus, and he had to respect the decision of voters in those districts who ousted incumbents. He also said Republicans may pick up a few seats in November.
“They picked up one or two but that doesn’t really change the fact that we’re in the majority,” he said of the Freedom Caucus.
A dozen other Republicans in the majority caucus who faced Freedom Caucus challengers held on to their seats, including Rep. Neal Collins, R-Easley, who won by what might be his widest margin in recent history, with nearly 55% of the vote.
In addition to the three Upstate seats the ultra-conservative caucus gained, 11 of its incumbents defeated GOP challengers who would have joined the majority.
The Freedom Caucus also held on to two open seats vacated by past members: One held by its chairman, state Rep. Adam Morgan, until he left to make an unsuccessful for a congressional seat, as well as a Tega Cay area seat, after Rep. David O’Neal decided not to seek re-election.
Rep. R.J. May, the vice chairman of the Freedom Caucus and a political consultant who worked on several of the campaigns, claimed victory against establishment Republicans.
“I think the voters voices across South Carolina were heard last night,” he said. “They want a government that is more conservative, that is more efficient, and they’re tired of politics as usual from the ruling coalition of moderate Republicans and liberal Democrats.”
Most races in South Carolina are decided in the primary, and districts the Freedom Caucus won are heavily Republican. But May did say one seat, the one formerly held by Ott, might be winnable by Republican Krista Hassell, another potential Freedom Caucus member. And May has his eye on expanding the caucus to the state Senate.
“There’s a number of candidates we’re in talks with who will hopefully join our effort,” he said, while declining to name any. “We’ll be having those conversations with them … to see if we can’t make this a bicameral effort.”
For the first time since being elected governor, Henry McMaster waded into Republican primaries to endorse challengers to three incumbent Freedom Caucus members, all of whom kept their seats. He also endorsed incumbent members of the Republican Caucus — including West and Sandifer, who lost.
“Governor McMaster had a successful night and is proud to have played his part in returning proven conservatives to Congress, the State Senate and House, and local office,” said Brandon Charochak, a spokesperson for the governor, in a statement Wednesday. “The governor has had a historically successful working relationship with the General Assembly, and last night’s returns show no indication that this will change.”
Senate hopefuls
In addition to Ott, several other House members made bids for a Senate seat but didn’t win outright, leaving the outcomes of those races up in the air until special run-offs can take place.
In heavily democratic Richland County, Rep. Ivory Thigpen, D-Columbia, will face off against Richland County Councilman Overture Walker in the race for the seat being vacated by Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Mia McLeod.
Rep. Jason Elliott, R-Greenville, will go up against Ben Carper, a real estate broker with a background in teaching who is backed by the chancellor of Bob Jones University. Ahead of the race, Carper expressed his support for the far-right House Freedom Caucus, according to the Greenville News.
Also of note are races involving two of South Carolina’s six female senators. The chamber’s women, who called themselves “sister senators” voted against last year’s six-week abortion ban. While they ultimately lost their bid to block the final version, they were successful in helping defeat the near-total ban passed by House Republicans that would have made abortions illegal from the moment a pregnancy is medically detectable.
But it also earned all three of the Republican female senators primary challenges.
That includes Charleston Sen. Sandy Senn’s highly contested race against a Johns Island House member, Rep. Matt Leber, which is headed to an automatic recount with less than 1% of the vote separating them.
Sen. Katrina Shealy, the Senate’s only chairwoman, lead but the Lexington Republican was short of clenching the race. She is facing a runoff against Carlisle Kennedy, the son of former state Rep. Ralph Kennedy, who was ousted in a GOP primary in 2016.
In his own concession speech, Harpotlian made special note of the “sister senators,” expressing regret that one had been defeated and two still face uncertainty.
“That speaks volumes to where our state is, at least in the Republican primary,” he said.
Harpootlian added that during his six years in the legislature, he’s watched factions of the GOP pull the party further to the right, pointing to the state’s restriction on abortions and a law passed earlier this year allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
Comeback attempts
Finally, South Carolina’s primaries also were littered with several former legislators hoping to return to office.
Seeking to reclaim his Spartanburg area seat, former Sen. Lee Bright, R-Roebuck, will go into a run-off against a House member seeking a Senate seat, Rep. Roger Nutt, R-Moore.
Former Rep. Kirkman Finlay won the Republican primary, setting up a rematch with incumbent Rep. Heather Bauer, D-Columbia, to try to win his seat back. On the other hand, former Rep. Vic Dabney was soundly defeated in his attempt to return.
In the crowded race to fill Ott’s seat as he heads to the Senate, former Rep. Jerry Govan, will go into a run-off in the democratic race with Johnny Felder. Felder is running for the seat once held by his father, former Rep. John Gressette Felder, for 24 years. He is also the great-nephew of the late state Sen. Marion Gressette, namesake of the Senate’s office building on Statehouse grounds and one of the state’s longest-serving legislators ever.
The post Harpootlian loses Senate seat, ‘sister senators’ lose ground and Freedom Caucus expands appeared first on SC Daily Gazette.