News

SC voters head to polls to decide Republican candidate for governor

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The two-week sprint from the South Carolina primaries to the runoffs is ending.

South Carolina voters will choose the Republican candidates for governor and attorney general in Tuesday's runoff elections.

Stay on top of the latest runoff results as they come in by downloading the WSOC-TV news app.

Gov. Henry McMaster is fighting for his political life against political newcomer and businessman John Warren. Attorney General Alan Wilson is also fighting to keep his party's nomination against state Rep. Todd Atwater.

Voters also will choose the Republican and Democratic candidates for the 4th Congressional District, as well as the Democratic nominees in the 2nd and 7th Congressional Districts.

[Emergency move of precinct location for some Rock Hill voters]

Any registered voter can cast a ballot with one catch - people who voted in a party primary on June 12 have to vote in that same party's runoff.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday.

2-week sprint to runoffs coming to an end in South Carolina

Here are several things to know about Tuesday's primary runoff in South Carolina:

___

THE RACES

The main event is the runoff between Gov. Henry McMaster and businessman John Warren as McMaster tries to win a full term. But there is another statewide GOP runoff too.

Attorney General Alan Wilson received 48.6 percent of the vote in the June 12 Republican primary, but 50 percent is required to win outright. So he faces state Rep. Todd Atwater on Tuesday to decide who wins the GOP nomination.

Corruption has been the theme of the race. Atwater said Wilson tried to stop a Statehouse corruption probe to help his political consultant. Wilson's campaign said Atwater voted on bills that directly affected the South Carolina Medical Association when he was its chief executive.

There are also four separate major party U.S. House nominations up for grabs, including who will likely replace U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy in the 4th District as both the Democratic and Republican nominations are up for grabs.

On the GOP side, former state Sen. Lee Bright is facing current state Sen. William Timmons. For the Democrats, businesswoman Lee Turner faces businessman Brandon Brown for the nomination in the district around Greenville and Spartanburg.

In the 7th District, voters will decide between state Rep. Robert Williams and economics and government teacher Mal Hyman for the Democratic nomination to face Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Rice in the district that stretches from Florence to Myrtle Beach

And in the 2nd District, a nasty Democratic campaign between Army veteran Sean Carrigan and civil rights attorney Annabelle Robertson ends. The nominee will face Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson in the western South Carolina district that includes Aiken, Barnwell and Lexington counties as well as parts of Orangeburg and Richland counties.

___

TURNOUT

Conventional wisdom says runoffs typically see significantly fewer voters than primary elections. The numbers in South Carolina show mixed results.

The last hard-fought Republican governor's runoff was in 2002, when Mark Sanford beat then Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler. The runoff saw just fewer than 3 percent of the voters who cast ballots in the primary.

But other races have seen steeper declines. In the 2004 U.S. Senate GOP runoff between Jim DeMint and David Beasley, turnout dropped more than 11 percent in two weeks. DeMint finished second in the primary but won the runoff.

And in the hotly contested 2012 Republican runoff in the newly formed 7th Congressional District, turnout dropped 20 percent as Tom Rice came from second to beat Andre Bauer in the runoff.

___

WHO CAN VOTE?

Anyone who is registered to vote can cast a ballot with one catch - people who voted in a party primary on June 12 have to vote in that same party's runoff.

So anyone who voted for James Smith, Phil Noble or Marguerite Willis earlier this month for governor in the Democratic primary can't vote for McMaster or Warren on Tuesday in the Republican runoff.

___

WEATHER

No surprises here. Tuesday will be a typical summer day in South Carolina with highs in the upper 80s or 90s, with the humidity making it feel hotter and chances of an afternoon thunderstorm pretty much anywhere in the state.

Trump praises SC governor as a 'fighter'

President Donald Trump praised South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster as a "fighter" at a campaign rally Monday night and implored Republicans to support the governor in Tuesday's runoff election.

Trump noted that McMaster was among the first elected leaders to support his presidential campaign in 2016.

Called to the stage, McMaster said that a storm delayed Air Force One's arrival in South Carolina, but once the plane touched ground, as the governor put it, "the real force of nature" arrived.

Trump joked that the media will accuse him of suffering a "major defeat" if McMaster loses his runoff against businessman John Warren.

McMaster received the most votes in a June 12 primary but fell short of the 50 percent needed to win the nomination outright.

Demonstrators gather outside of Trump event

It didn’t take long for hundreds of people to line the street outside the rally. Most held handmade signs to protest President Donald Trump’s visit to the Palmetto State and his policies.

“First it was just hate speech and then, now, we’re taking kids away from their families. It’s just getting worse and worse,” said Corin Rangel.

Several people told Channel 9 the current immigration debate motivated them to protest.

“This kind of discourse and these kinds of policies by this president are just not what America is all about,” said Don Hair.

Even though the majority of signs and messages were geared toward the president and his policies. Some demonstrators acknowledged the campaign rally for McMaster and said they hope he sees their messages too.

“I think McMaster is one of [Trump's] puppets that I think he will just go along with anything Trump says. He’s got to hear what the people are actually saying,” Hair said.

Warren crisscrossing state as SC gov runoff comes to a close

A wealthy political newcomer challenging South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster for the Republican gubernatorial nomination has been spending the final days before Tuesday's runoff crisscrossing the state.

Greenville businessman and Marine veteran John Warren planned to make stops across the state on Monday in Simpsonville, Daniel Island, West Columbia, Rock Hill and on Hilton Head Island, a day before voters go to the polls to pick their GOP nominee.

McMaster was the top individual vote-getter in the June 12 primary, but failed to get the majority of votes, which he needed to secure the nomination. Warren finished second with 28 percent of votes cast and was endorsed by the third- and fourth-place finishers, former state agency head Catherine Templeton and Lt. Gov. Kevin Bryant.

President Donald Trump was scheduled to campaign with McMaster on Monday evening in West Columbia, making a last push for the candidate he helped elevate to the state's top office early last year when then-Gov. Nikki Haley became U.N. Ambassador. As lieutenant governor, McMaster was the first statewide elected official in the country to back Trump's candidacy in early 2016, giving the businessman's outsider candidacy a key boost ahead of South Carolina's early primary.

As an entrepreneur and first-time candidate who's given millions to his own campaign, Warren has said that he's more similar to Trump than McMaster, long a fixture in South Carolina's Republican establishment.

"If anyone supported Donald Trump, and they look and truly give an honest assessment of whose resume and whose background is more similar to Donald Trump, they will side with me," Warren said during a recent interview with The Associated Press. "It is clear I'm an outsider. I am a businessman. I'm a conservative. The establishment doesn't want me to get elected."

In the campaign's closing days, Warren has been making a final effort to get out his message as the candidate who represents a change from what he describes as a gubernatorial administration of government corruption and glad-handing. As McMaster supporters gathered in Conway over the weekend for a campaign rally with Vice President Mike Pence, Warren held a news conference nearby, outlining contributions and appointments that he argued make McMaster a "pay-to-play" governor.

"The career politicians don't want me to get elected, because they know that I'm going to go down there and just fight for the taxpayer," Warren recently told AP. "And I am not beholden to anyone."

Read more top trending stories on wsoctv.com: