Mark Sanford loses to Kate Arrington in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District.
When then-Gov. Mark Sanford admitted in 2009 to carrying on an extramarital affair under the guise of hiking the “Appalachian Trail,” the South Carolina Republican escaped with a censure, and remained popular enough to win back his old congressional seat a few years later. But in 2018, he couldn’t survive Donald Trump.
Sanford, now a congressional incumbent, lost the GOP primary in the state’s 1stDistrict on Tuesday. With nearly all precincts reporting, Sanford trailed state lawmaker Katie Arrington by a little more than 4 points, 50.6 percent to 46.5 percent.* A candidate needed a majority of the vote to avoid a runoff and win the nomination outright.
Arrington entered the race as a long shot but found success attacking Sanford for his vocal criticism of Trump, effectively turning the primary into a referendum on the Republican president. Trump gave Arrington a late push with an endorsement on Twitter—though it came with only hours left until the polls closed.
AdvertisementMark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina. I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2018
Sanford had previously never lost an election—a notable fear for a politician who, as governor, traveled to Argentina for an extramarital affair that he infamously attempted to cover up by claiming he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. (Arrington, like Trump, made sure voters didn’t forget that.) Despite the fallout from the affair, Sanford finished out his second term as governor and remained relatively popular in South Carolina. Voters elected him to Congress via a 2013 special election, gave him a full term the following year, and then another in 2016.
Advertisement Advertisement AdvertisementSanford becomes the second GOP congressman to be defeated in a primary this year, joining Rep. Robert Pittenger, who lost to pastor Mark Harris in North Carolina last month. But in that race, both candidates sparred over who was the bigger fan of Trump, and the president didn’t pick sides.
AdvertisementSanford’s race is the clearest example yet of how a lack of loyalty to Trump can prove costly in a Republican primary. In Alabama, Rep. Martha Roby failed to secure her nomination outright last week, two years after she withdrew her endorsement of Trump during the campaign following the release of the Access Hollywoodtape. Roby has since re-embraced Trump, but her primary challengers nonetheless used her comments against her and she’ll now need to survive a runoff. Similarly, in Virginia on Tuesday, GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock had a closer-than-expected race against her own conservative challenger, who accused her of being a “Never Trumper” for previously calling Trump’s boasts about sexual assault “vile” and “disgusting.”
AdvertisementThe attack doesn’t always stick. In a different Virginia district, GOP Rep. Scott Taylor coasted to the nomination by roughly 50 points despite criticism from his primary challenger that he was insufficiently supportive of Trump (although Taylor’s massive cash advantage helped mute those attacks). And in South Carolina’s gubernatorial race, Gov. Henry McMaster, an early Trump supporter, failed to avoid a runoff, despite the president’s help.
AdvertisementBut Sanford’s willingness to publicly criticize Trump made him more vulnerable than most GOP incumbents to attacks from the right. During the 2016 campaign, Sanford took issue with Trump flubbing the basics of the U.S. Constitution, suggested he should “just shut up” instead of responding to every attack, and wrote a New York Times op-ed calling on him to release his tax returns. The congressman then kept at it after Trump was sworn in, calling the president’s tariffs on steel and aluminum “an experiment with stupidity” and his “shithole” remarks about Haiti and African nations “something stupid,” and more broadly suggesting the president had “fanned the flames of intolerance.”
Advertisement AdvertisementAll of that provided plenty of grist for Arrington. One of her ads used cable-news clips of Sanford talking about Trump to brand him a “#NeverTrumper,” and another declared: “It’s time for a conservative who will work with President Trump, not against him.” A third not-so-subtly revisited Sanford’s affair: “Mark Sanford and the career politicians cheated on us. We sent him to do a job, but he left his post and set off down a long trail towards obstructionism.”
Sanford tried to mitigate the damage during the primary, tacking back toward Trump late in the race. In an eleventh-hour ad blitz—a rarity for the notoriously frugal candidate—Sanford told voters that he’d voted with the president “overwhelmingly” and voiced support for Trump’s beloved wall.
In the end, though, that wasn’t enough to appease the GOP base. In a lengthy interview during the early days of Trump’s presidency, Sanford appeared to realize the risk he was taking. “I’m a dead man walking,” he told Politico at the time. “If you’ve already been dead, you don’t fear it as much. I’ve been dead politically.”
Correction, June 13, 2018: An earlier version of this post misstated Arrington’s first name. It is Katie, not Kate.
Tweet Share Share Comment-
Which is Faster for Gaming, Windows 10 or Windows 11?Everything coming to Hulu in June 2020我市举行省运会雅安代表团出征动员誓师大会The Portable Workstation: Dell XPS 13 + 32 UltraSharp 4K Monitor采购商+48,英德红茶在泉城济南蹭蹭涨粉“粤合好物”大型“网友见面会”,总有一款系你心水汕尾展团风采·陆丰篇|荔枝、甘薯、大安蒜、菠萝、油柑来了!老树柑茶业:走“百搭”健康融合路线,延链做强陈皮产业Alcaraz, Sinner survive US Open wobblesCan Ronaldo return make Man Utd a European force again?
- ·14 Heists, Robberies, and Other Great Capers
- ·[Newsmaker] N. Koreans overtake S. Koreans in TOEFL score in 2020: report
- ·This is how self
- ·Amazon will ship live Christmas trees to your door — but will they stay and put on the damn lights?
- ·Apple to start manufacturing iPhone Pro in India, report claims
- ·创新模式搭平台 党建服务暖民心
- ·新会超记陈皮:专注核心产区陈皮,独守匠心工艺
- ·You've accepted the notch. Prepare to accept the square camera bump
- ·20 Places to Eat Dumplings and Noodles for Lunar New Year
- ·市住建局:对照目标抓落实 奋力推进求突破
- ·Apple turns its Canadian homepage into an emoji
- ·[Newsmaker] N. Koreans overtake S. Koreans in TOEFL score in 2020: report
- ·Cyrix: Gone But Not Forgotten
- ·Facebook launches Libra cryptocurrency with a massive list of partners
- ·Apple's self
- ·North Korean leader vows support for China's fight against 'hostile forces'
- ·Apple iPod: The First 10 Years of the Ubiquitous Media Player
- ·12 smartphone camera bumps, ranked
- ·California’s top
- ·曾庆昌:与广东养猪产业大会相伴12年,播恩上市踏上广阔征程
- ·13 Places to Find Little Legends and Compact Cryptids
- ·Ultimate dad Barack Obama accidentally plays matchmaker at campaign event
- ·TNT's 'Snowpiercer' takes too long to pick up speed: Review
- ·Trump reportedly asked Sessions to un
- ·Ruling bloc divided on foreign nannies' pay
- ·Korea will not give AstraZeneca COVID
- ·The local version of Project 2025 is already causing devastation.
- ·Instagram head says the app does not eavesdrop to show you better ads
- ·AT&T cancels Samsung Galaxy Fold pre
- ·Hackers can spoof presidential alerts to incite mass panic, researchers warn
- ·PS5 Pro: It looks like a sketch of the design just leaked
- ·FIFA backs down on threat to fine PL clubs
- ·Amazon to sell its own face shields and this is normal now
- ·我市举行省运会雅安代表团出征动员誓师大会
- ·古物:回望时间的印记
- ·The adorable villagers of 'Animal Crossing' give the best life advice