- BIG STORY: Wilson, Johnson make cases for governor
- ROUNDUP: Newsom slams GOP in S.C., urges Dems to fight
- LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: Back to school
- BRACK: Tough messaging ahead for S.C.’s fall campaigns
- MYSTERY PHOTO: Gridiron
- FEEDBACK: Beasley is dreaming
Wilson, Johnson make cases for governor
By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse Bureau | The late Lee Atwater likely wouldn’t have known what to make of it.
Opponents who don’t tear into each other — or even mention the other guy’s name?
That’s just not how Atwater, the bad-boy Palmetto State Republican operative who famously exported South Carolina’s gleefully savage brand of bare-knuckles politics to the rest of the nation in the 1980s, played the game.
And yet, in interviews last week, state Attorney General Alan Wilson and Rep. Jermaine Johnson, the respective Republican and Democratic candidates for governor, spoke earnestly and at length about their plans for the state — and didn’t talk at all about one another.
If it wasn’t full-on Minnesota Nice politics, it was at least Palmetto State Polite.
“Look, this is a conservative state and I intend to be a conservative governor,” Wilson said. “But if we’re truly going to lift all boats with the tide here in South Carolina, it’s going to require us to sometimes reach across the aisle to people we don’t always agree with regardless of party.”
Johnson struck a similar bipartisan note when asked about his approach .
“The reason I have respect from Republicans in the General Assembly is because I communicate,” he said. “I spend time with them. I work with them. And while we may not always see eye-to-eye on everything, we can usually figure out a compromise that gets a victory for the people of South Carolina.”
Still,t underneath the bipartisan rhetoric, there are two very different men running for governor of South Carolina — and each has a story to tell about how he got here and what he’d do if elected.
Johnson: ‘People need to hear they can make it through the fire’
At some point, probably every poor kid in America dreams of being smart and talented and disciplined enough to take the school-and-sports express out of poverty and into the great American middle class.
Jermaine Johnson, born to working-class parents in a tough Los Angeles neighborhood on the Fourth of July 1985, was one of the kids who wasn’t just dreaming.
Growing up, he saw it all — and lived most of it. Intermittent homelessness. Drugs everywhere you looked. A brother killed by a gun.
And all the while, Johnson was playing basketball for prep schools that wanted his smarts and his talent — gifts that in 2004 landed him at the College of Charleston on a full athletic scholarship.
“Basketball saved my life,” he said simply.
And it taught him, he said, that he had to keep fighting — first for his future, and then and for others.
“People need to know they can overcome these obstacles, they can make it through the fire,” said Johnson, now 41. “All these different experiences in my life have just given me a unique perspective on caring for people, on having that empathy for all South Carolinians.”
Eventually, those experiences led Johnson to start and lead the nonprofit New Economic Beginnings Foundation, which helps find education and job opportunities for troubled young people and veterans — and to run for a seat in the S.C. House, where he’s served since December 2020.
And you can hear the echoes of that life when he talks about his top three priorities as governor: improving the state’s 42nd-in-the-nation education system, fixing its “decrepit” roads and bridges, and expanding Medicaid to give 500,000 South Carolinians access to health care.
“When I’m governor, we’re going to start defining the success of South Carolina – not by how its businesses are doing, but by how its people are doing,” said the 6-foot-7 Johnson. “I’ve been hungry, I’ve been homeless, I’ve lived in motels. I’ll fight for everyday South Carolinians, because I’ve never forgotten where I came from.”
Wilson: ‘The things that matter more than title, position or money’
When people hear that Alan Wilson is longtime 2nd District Congressman Joe Wilson’s son, they may find themselves imagining a life of silver spoons and easy advancement.
And glancing at a campaign biography — Eagle Scout, colonel in the National Guard, state attorney general before his fortieth birthday — it’s easy to see why.
It would also be wrong.
Born in West Columbia in 1973, Wilson lost his biological father, a Vietnam veteran who died in a helicopter accident during flight training at Fort Bragg, N.C., before his third birthday.
Soon he and his mother Roxanne were back in S.C., where she was teaching school and raising a toddler on her own — not an easy thing for a woman in that era or any other, Wilson noted with unmistakable pride.
Eventually, Wilson said, his mother met and married the man he calls “my second dad,” a young attorney named Joe Wilson, who adopted the boy and helped set him “on a pathway to public service.”
But it was two later experiences — witnessing the bravery of his fellow soldiers when his convoy came under attack in Iraq and helping his wife during a harrowing but ultimately successful fight against breast cancer — that Wilson called “very impactful.”
“The first event grounded me in my faith and taught me to appreciate and take full advantage of life,” Wilson said. “And the second taught me to have priorities — God, faith and family. Those are the things that matter so much more than title, position or money.”
Asked about his top three priorities as governor, Wilson talked about a “quality of life” agenda for South Carolina families — improving affordability, limiting the negative impacts of an exploding population with smart growth strategies and investing in infrastructure.
“My number one goal as governor is to make people’s lives better, which probably hearkens back to the Boy Scouts, who teach you to always leave the campsite better than you found it,” Wilson said. “I would do everything I could to make it easier for you to live, work and raise a family in South Carolina.”
And two things you probably don’t know
After so much time talking about the challenges they’d faced and their hopes for South Carolina, each candidate seemed happy to end on a question that asked them to be themselves for a moment.
What don’t most people know about you? What would they be surprised to learn?
“One of my favorite things to do is, my wife and I love to watch Hallmark movies during the holidays,” Wilson said with a laugh. “We just love the holidays. I’m like the Clark Griswold of Christmas. And at Halloween, we’re the house where you’ll have 300 kids lined up to come through because we just love to do it up big.”
As for Johnson, he said he’s always surprised when people think his basketball career ended at the College of Charleston.
“People don’t realize I was an actual athlete before I got into this,” Johnson said. “I played professional ball in the NBA D League, and then overseas for six years — Brazil, Canada, Portugal, Mexico. When you include the College of Charleston, that’s 11 years of high-level basketball — and these days, people only know the last six in politics.”
With two months left to go in the race, Lee Atwater may yet have his day. Both campaigns have certainly laid the groundwork for tough contrasts in prior statements, with Wilson calling the Democratic ticket the most “radical” in S.C. history, and Johnson observing that it’s rich when the party that’s controlled every level of state government for 20 years starts talking about change.
But for now at least, when the candidates are asked to talk about what matters most to them, it’s personal stories, positive agendas, Hallmark movies and roundball.
The first debate between the candidates will air statewide on Oct. 6, at 7 p.m. on Gray Media stations and on the web. Voters will decide the race when they head to the polls Nov. 3.
Jack O’Toole is Statehouse bureau chief for Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
Newsom slams GOP in S.C., urges Dems to fight
By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau | With South Carolina now officially set as the first Democratic presidential primary of 2028, California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled into the Palmetto State Thursday with a message that blasted leaders in both major parties — Republicans for threatening democracy and Democrats for not fighting hard enough to protect it.
“I am here because I honestly believe that if we don’t take back the House of Representatives, we don’t win these local House seats, we will not have a country we recognize anymore,” Newsom told voters on St. Helena Island.
At an earlier stop in Hardeeville, he said President Donald Trump was “trying to rig the election before the first vote is cast,” the Post and Courier reported.
But according to Newsom, Democrats bear more than a little responsibility for Republicans’ success. Specifically, he criticized the Democratic establishment for ineffectual campaign tactics that effectively ceded red states to the GOP.
“What happened to Democrats over the last 20 years?” Newsom asked. “We started to see red and we said, ‘It’s not worth the drive.’ Well, you are worth the drive.”
He added, “So often we are trying to win arguments, while the other side is consolidating power.”
Meanwhile, Republicans welcomed Newsom to the state with down-home jeers and a little old-fashioned he-ain’t-from-around-here mockery.
“Maybe he’ll run into some of the Californians who fled the mess he created back home,” 2026 GOP gubernatorial nominee, Attorney General Alan Wilson, said in a statement. “Higher costs. Bigger government. Failed liberal policies. California can keep it. Don’t California My South Carolina.”
Newsom was expected to make six public stops during his swing through the state before heading to North Carolina.
In other recent news
2026: SC-1 race mentioned as one where Dems hope for upset. This story highlights several U.S. House races, including S.C.’s First Congressional battle between the GOP’s Jenny Honeycutt and the Democratic nominee Nancy Lacore, as one that Dems hope to pull off an upset.
- Lacore just one of several former Republicans running for Congress as Democrats
- S.C. gubernatorial debate set for Oct. 6 between Johnson, Wilson
- Norman endorses Graham in U.S. Senate race
- Williams wins election to be Democratic nominee in S.C. Senate District 15 race
McMaster signs bill for $350M in earmarks. Gov. Henry McMaster has signed legislation directing roughly $350 million in earmarks to projects across South Carolina, clearing the way for investments in transportation, public safety, economic development, recreation and infrastructure initiatives statewide.
- S.C. joins other states in ending ‘orphan tax’
- McMaster moves to oust Charleston school board member
Hands-free law leads to hundreds of citations. The state’s year-old hands-free law, in effect for a year, has resulted in hundreds of citations across the Lowcountry — 700 since March in Mount Pleasant and 600 in Charleston.
S.C. families lose childcare assistance as ABC vouchers expire. South Carolina paused new and renewal applications for its Working Families’ Childcare Scholarship Program back in December, leaving working parents across the state searching for ways to afford care as existing subsidies expire.
S.C. Supreme Court says ACLU can share execution records already made public. A civil rights group can’t face punishment for releasing certain information about the execution process, the state Supreme Court said Wednesday.
A closer look at the nearly $3 billion data center in Spartanburg. At a time when data centers are under scrutiny nationwide, the nearly $3 billion facility going up on South Pine Street in Spartanburg County is facing the heat, but construction isn’t slowing down.
Back to school
Award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail has a special knack for shining a light on critical issues in just the right way. This week, he gives a nod to students headed back to school replete with a tip of the hat to Mr. Covid, who is starting to make a reappearance across the Palmetto State. (Undercurrent message: Get vaccinated.)
- Love this week’s cartoon or hate it? Did he go too far, or not far enough? Send your thoughts to feedback@statehousereport.com.
Brack: Tough messaging ahead for S.C.’s fall campaigns
Commentary by Andy Brack | Every two years, Labor Day welcomes the traditional start of the political campaigning season. This year’s, in a simple word, will be a humdinger.
Republicans in South Carolina will do just about everything they can to scramble away from the sucky economy, high costs of gas and food, and a weird war with Iran where every day seems like Groundhog Day.
Meanwhile, Democrats will do just about everything they can to tie any Republican on the ballot into the tumbling Trump administration, its false grandeur, corruption, profligate spending, chaos, protection of the billionaire class and more.
Unfortunately, this season’s airwaves probably will be more negative than ever. And that messaging is going to trickle down. Statewide, legislative and local candidates will blow up your phones with texts and spam calls, bombard websites with nasty ads and infiltrate social media with messages your grandma wouldn’t want to see.
In anticipation of all of the pettiness and craven attempts to keep or get power, don’t be surprised if you find candidates resorting to these kinds of messages about their opponents.
The Republican fear-mongering playbook
You will hear more about communists and socialists from Republicans about Democrats than you have since the McCarthyism of the 1950s. Republicans will incessantly push talking points that Democrats now are nothing but supporters of the worst kind of left-wing socialists. They’ll try to tie blue candidates to former President Barack Obama, Rosie O’Donnell, Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom and anybody who hasn’t spewed unfettered fealty to President Donald Trump.
You might realize how much individual Republican candidates believe they are in trouble by the amount of negative campaigning they do. The more you hear about how Democrats support welfare queens, DEI, the LGBTQ+ agenda and other worn liberal criticisms, the more you will know how scared they really are.
As one wag told us, they can’t talk about their buddy Trump because the economy is terrible, the war is unpopular, gas prices are way too high, tariffs are hurting jobs and the price of food has gone way up, not down as Trump promised.
So when you encounter a Republican eaten up with fearmongering, ask this question: “What are you going to do for my family?”
The Democratic victim playbook
Democrats, on the other hand, will spend a whole bunch of their time trying to tie Trump to every Republican on the ballot. If you’re a Republican dogcatcher, Dems will try to figure out a way to argue that the way you pick up dogs is like building a big, beautiful ballroom – wasteful and corrupt.
They’ll showcase how Trump is making billions by gaming the system in his favor. They’ll talk about how he ignores the U.S. Constitution, freedom and the rule of law. They’ll wax on about how he slashed taxes for his fellow billionaires or how he and his party want to cut Social Security and Medicare (the Democratic fear mantra). They’ll highlight how the GOP’s intransigence and do-nothing attitude in Congress has led to high gas prices and expensive groceries.
They’ll run ads to get voters to ask Republicans in the race whether they support the ballroom or the war or cutting drug research or cutting down national forests. They’ll prod the GOP on corruption in Washington and at home, asking questions like, “Are you better off in South Carolina after more than two decades of Republican control?”
So here is what’s ahead in a snapshot: As Republicans try to run from Trump’s abysmal record and conceit by smearing Democrats with accusations of socialism, Democrats will do their damnedest to make Republicans defend Trump to get independent voters to lean their way.
In heavily gerrymandered South Carolina, a lot of this won’t matter in some areas. But statewide, it might drive turnout and upset a few political applecarts.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
Gridiron
Here’s a football mystery to celebrate the start of this year’s season. Where is this? Bonus points: Tell us something about this year’s team outlook. Please send in your best guess – and your name and hometown – to feedback@statehousereport.com. And if you have a mystery photo to share, send that along too (but tell us what it is because we’re horrible guessers.)
Last week’s mystery, “Convivial setting,” showed the upstairs bar for Bowens Island Restaurant set along the Folly River near Folly Beach. Owned by former state Rep. Robert Barber, it’s a place since the 1940s where you’ve been able to get great roasted oysters (in season), fried shrimp, fried fish and cold beer.
Hats off to sleuths who got it right – Jay Altman of Columbia; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; Janet Lyons of Mount Pleasant; and George Graf of Palmyra, Va.
- SHARE: If you have a Mystery Photo to share, please send it to us – and make sure you tell us what it is!
Beasley is dreaming
To the editor:
I predict no one will have a successful “breaking bread” meal with the other political side as former Gov. David Beasley wants.
Republicans will want to pray before eating, ask that the check is equally divided (most Democrats are atheists who want everything for free), won’t care what type of bread it is and at the end of endless arguing, the common ground will be adding trillions of dollars to our $40 trillion national debt.
Hope they don’t serve well-done French baguettes. Those things could double as a weapon once inevitable arguments break out!
Please stop ruining perfectly good bread by trying to make a difference.
– Will Bradley, Las Vegas, Nevada
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