Former Republican Rep. Mark Sanford is launching a comeback bid for his old House seat, eight years after losing a primary to a challenger backed by President Donald Trump.
Sanford was ousted in a 2018 Republican primary by candidate Katie Arrington, who went on to lose the general election to Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) flipped the seat back to Republican with her 2020 win, but the congresswoman is running for governor and will not seek another term.
Mace’s departure is giving Sanford, 64, an opportunity to return to congressional politics. Sanford filed paperwork on Monday, the state’s deadline for candidacy.
“People have been telling me it’s time to get off the bleachers,” Sanford told the Post and Courier in an interview.
Sanford was originally elected to represent South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District in 1994. He held the seat, which includes part of Charleston, before retiring in 2000 due to a term-limits pledge. Sanford successfully ran for governor of South Carolina in 2002 and was reelected in 2006.
He left office in 2011 under a cloud of scandal after having disappeared from South Carolina for nearly a week in 2009. Initially thought to have gone missing hiking the Appalachian Trail, Sanford had actually traveled to Argentina to visit his mistress.
Despite the scandal, Sanford won a 2013 special election against comedian Stephen Colbert’s sister to represent the 1st Congressional District. The seat became vacant after the GOP incumbent Tim Scott was appointed to the Senate.
In the House, Sanford focused on lowering the national debt and advocated a small-government philosophy. The viewpoint brought him into conflict with Trump after 2016.
Sanford is a critic of President Donald Trump, stating the president’s abrasive and bullying tactics were a sign of the breakdown in American politics. The president endorsed Arrington over Sanford in 2018, leading to the rare ousting of an incumbent.
“The race ultimately was reduced down to who was more Trump, versus not, and I lost that race,” Sanford acknowledged at the time.
Trump said at the time that Sanford “has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to [Make America Great Again]. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina.”
Two years after losing his House seat, Sanford launched a long-shot bid challenging Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2020. He dropped out of the race before the first primary vote was cast.
An open congressional seat is rare, usually prompting a large influx of candidates from both parties. Sanford will face at least 10 other Republicans who have already filed to run in the primary for Mace’s seat, including state Rep. Mark Smith and a handful of county lawmakers.
On the Democratic side, Mac Deford is attempting a comeback after losing the 2024 primary by 3 percentage points. Mayra Rivera-Vasquez is a former Democratic county chairwoman. The other two Democratic opponents are political newcomers.
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The South Carolina primary is set for June 9. While the 1st District changed parties between 2018 and 2020, redistricting after the 2020 census made the district more favorable to Republicans. Mace has easily won reelection since she was elected in 2020, winning in 2024 with over 58% of the vote.
An open seat, particularly in a midterm year, could slightly boost Democrats’ chances of flipping the seat. But the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates Mace’s open seat as “solid Republican.” Trump won the seat by 13 percentage points in 2024 over former Vice President Kamala Harris.
