POLITICSState House

S.C. Senator Sean Bennett: 2026 Gubernatorial Profile

“People ultimately are going to make decisions on issues…”

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The 2026 governor’s race in South Carolina opened with a bang this week as first district congresswoman Nancy Mace uncorked multiple broadsides against state attorney general Alan Wilson.

With one frontrunner dropping hammer blows on another, there wasn’t much room for other prospective candidates to get their views into the bloodstream. Luckily, we help guide the ebb and flow of political discourse in the Palmetto State – and while we tracked Mace’s blitzkrieg on Wilson extensively, we also balanced it with substantive coverage of others who could wind up entering this race.

Specifically, we interviewed one of the two state senators reportedly interested in the governor’s mansion in 2026 (the other senator will be joining us later in the week).

On Monday (January 27, 2025) we sat down with state senator Sean Bennett of Summerville, S.C. Recently elected to his fourth term in the S.C. Senate, Bennett is a financial planner who has spent much of his time in Columbia pushing for top-to-bottom reform of the Palmetto State’s tax code and regulatory structure.

Frankly, he’s been way ahead of the curve on tax reform… an issue which has become en vogue this session.

We published a report last fall on Bennett’s prospective candidacy, referring to him as “a free market, pro-trade, deregulation advocate.” At the time, Bennett told us he’d been approached about running for governor and was giving it serious consideration. That position still stands, he told us this week.

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“It’s intriguing to me, I’ll be honest with you,” Bennett said of a possible run for the state’s top executive post. “I think there’s a lot of things going on in South Carolina that need some attention. I’ve mentioned a few times we’ve had a great amount of success over the past decade/ decade-and-a-half and I think that success has camouflaged a lot of fiscal issues that we need to address and I haven’t seen a lot of folks willing to take those things on.”

In other words, recent population growth – and industrial expansion – has created a significant revenue uptick at the state level, allowing South Carolina leaders to skate on fiscal fundamentals.

Asked about the current state of the gubernatorial race, Bennett said he felt confident voters would look past all of the early “jostling” and settle on candidates who were addressing their bottom lines.

“People ultimately are going to make decisions on issues,” Bennett said. “People are smart enough to see through that. They want serious candidates talking about serious issues that effect them – particularly at the state level. We have so much performative politics at the national level. Candidly, that may be good entertainment for folks but when you get home and you’re dealing with the things that effect you every day, people want serious folks on serious issues.”

While Bennett didn’t role out a specific tax plan during our interview, he did lay out several guiding principles which he said would guide his thinking on the issue.

“Let’s lower all of our taxes,” he said. “Don’t drop a tax rate to zero and then surprise somebody and raise their sales taxes or their property taxes. Let’s widen the tax base and have everyone share in that.”

Bennett and I enjoyed a far-ranging discussion on taxes, spending, regulatory reform, judicial selection and the changing composition of the S.C. General Assembly over his tenure.

To view the whole conversation, click here…

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Will Folks on phone
Will Folks (Brett Flashnick)

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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