Fighting for the 5th District: GOP foes battle in runoff while Democrat gets general election head start – Charleston Post Courier

COLUMBIA Three candidates remain in South Carolina's highly contested special congressional election to succeed Mick Mulvaney, a race that will determine whether the Republican Party maintains control of a seat they have held since the rise of the tea party or if the Democrats can flip a district that was once solidly blue.

With five Republican challengers out of the race following Tuesday's primary, GOP voters will now have to choose between state Rep. Tommy Pope and former lawmaker Ralph Norman, both of Rock Hill, in a runoff election on May 16.

Democrat Archie Parnell, a former tax attorney and congressional staffer from Sumter who beat two primary foes last week,will get a head start in the June 20 general election.

Whoever wins the special election will weigh in on a number of legislative priorities that Donald Trump's administration has yet to advance out of the president's first 100 days. Trump's promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border has yet to materialize. A long-discussed tax reform package has yet to be unveiled in Congress.

The president's proposed spending plan, which Mulvaney crafted as his new budget director, has yet to get vote, though the plan has already received criticism for slashing domestic spending for after-school programs and Meals on Wheels.

A Republican proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act passed the House on Thursday, but the plan is being questioned already by some senators, meaninghealth care issues will likely loom in Congress at least through the end of the year.

Congressional special elections also are being watched closely this year as Democrats in Kansas and Georgia nearly pulled off upsets in heavily Republican districts.

Republican Runoff

If the primary is any indication, the GOP runoff election between Pope and Norman is going to be close. The two lawmakers each pulled in more than 11,000 votes with just 135 ballots separating them.

The crowded Republican primary grabbed attention because of controversial ads released byfifth-place Republican finisher Sheri Few. But in the end, the two recent state legislators won.

Two extremely well-known candidates in the front dominated this race, said Scott Huffmon, a political science professor at Winthrop University.

Pope and Norman both benefited, Huffmon said, from the name recognition they maintained from their 2016 campaigns for the state Legislature. Living in the most populated region of the 11-county congressional district also gave them a leg up.

York County accounted for 43 percent of the ballotscastin the entire special primary election. Pope and Norman picked up a large majority of that support, with each pulling in two-thirds of their votesin York County. The 5th District stretches from Rock Hill to Sumter.

Norman, a real estate developer, has tried to run to the right of Pope and has attempted to emulate Mulvaney, who won the district with 59 percent of the vote last fall. If elected, Normanplans to join the fiscal conservative U.S. House Freedom Caucus.

If you're interested in duplicating what Mick Mulvaney did, the choice is obviously me, Norman said.

Norman has attacked Pope for joining 96 other state lawmakers in voting for a gas tax increase in the Legislature in order to fix South Carolina's roadways. Norman didn't have to vote on that issue this year. He resigned from his Statehouse seat to run for Congressbefore the roads plan vote.

Pope, in turn, has run his campaign focusing on police, immigration and national security issues, while playing up his time as a South Carolina state solicitor. He says he likely wouldn't join the Freedom Caucus, and sees himself as more deliberative than Norman.

"Doing what's right and what's best is not always politically expedient," Pope said. "I think that's what will differentiate me from my opponent. I'm going to make a hard decision, not just a convenient decision."

Head start for Democrat

Parnell, a businessman who worked with Goldman Sachs and Exxon Mobil, has momentum heading into the upcoming general election, where he has shown an eagerness to use Mulvaney's proposed budget and the new Republican health care bill against either GOP opponent.

"They are refusing to take a stand on today's D.C. health bill that increases costs, cuts coverage, and is a giveaway to big insurance companies. I oppose that," said Parnell, who captured more than 70 percent of the Democratic primary vote last week.

Even so, it's likely to be a tough race for the new Democratic nominee with the district's makeup and the influx of wealthier, white voters from the Charlotte area.

"This district is just a difficult uphill climb even in the best of circumstances," said Huffmon, "and this special off-year election is not the best of circumstances.

There were 20,500 more ballots cast for the seven Republicans in the primary than there were for the three Democrats, which could make the math difficult for Parnell in the general election.

The Republicans aren't taking Parnell's candidacy lightly, however, after watching other special election races, including Georgia's 6th District outside Atlanta, where a Democrat nearly won an open primary outright.

You look at what happened in Georgia, you look what happened all over the country, Norman said. "People are still mad."

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Fighting for the 5th District: GOP foes battle in runoff while Democrat gets general election head start - Charleston Post Courier