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Political strategists across South Carolina are still sifting through the aftermath of last week’s history-making detonation. Even by the standards of South Carolina’s infamously savage politics, congresswoman Nancy Mace’s blistering attack on her top 2026 gubernatorial rival — delivered from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives — was one for the record books.
We’re told pollsters for both sides – plus a slew of outside interests – are currently assessing the impact of Mace’s no-holds-barred offensive against four-term attorney general Alan Wilson. As we await discernible data on that front, we’re setting that particular battle on the back burner this week.
Fear not, though… Palmetto politics never rests, as this latest edition of our index clearly shows.
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Every Monday, we track the rising and falling fortunes of national politicos via the ‘FITSNews Political Stock Index.’ Every Tuesday, we publish the ‘Palmetto Political Stock Index’ – which takes inventory of politicos from our home state of South Carolina, host of the quadrennial “First in the Nation” (for Democrats) and “First in the South” (for Republicans) presidential primaries.
Got a hot “stock tip” for these indices? Email our founding editor Will Folks (here) and/or political columnist Mark Powell (here).
Where should you invest your political capital this week? To the index…
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SHANE MASSEY
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STOCK: RISING
“Courage is grace under pressure,” Ernest Hemingway famously wrote. And given the withering barrage directed at S.C. Senate majority leader Shane Massey last week, he has displayed a true profile in courage.
What did the Edgefield, S.C. native do to draw such ferocious incoming fire? He declared war on perhaps the biggest ‘big dog’ in Columbia. Massey had the testicular fortitude to stand up to one of the most powerful of Palmetto State lobbying groups: the trial lawyers.
Massey is pushing for meaningful tort reform. So meaningful, in fact, that it could take a serious bite out of the trial lawyers’ infamously deep pockets – which could adversely impact their clout at the S.C. State House.
The big dogs are biting back, too, blasting Massey as “AllState Shane” because his legislation purportedly benefits the insurance industry in which he works. They’re not stopping there, though. Massey was even dinged by MAGA-aligned accounts last week for being anti-MAGA – which in South Carolina GOP circles these days is the same as being accused of heresy.
Massey’s response? He’s rolling the dice and pushing forward with this highest of high-stakes gambles.
Massey’s bold leadership on tort reform has revived talk of him possibility running for governor in 2026. If he pulls off significant tort reform – and neuters the trial lobby in the process – it would send his stock soaring while giving him an incredibly strong campaign plank on which to run. Even if he comes up short, his willingness to take on this incredibly influential entity could work to his benefit.
In fact, it already is…
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TRIAL LAWYERS LOBBY
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STOCK: HOLDING
The stakes in the tort reform debate are equally high for the trial lawyers – one of the legislature’s most influential and firmly entrenched special interest groups. As noted above, reduced lawsuit judgments would mean reduced profits – and reduced profits would mean less money to spread around Columbia. That, in turn, would mean dramatically less political clout.
Up till now, it’s been smooth sailing for trial lawyers in Columbia, S.C. After all, the S.C. General Assembly is dominated by lawyer-legislators who write the rules – and pick the judges who enforce them. However, two things are conspiring to create choppy waters ahead.
First, many lawyers are privately complaining that attacking Massey on such a personal level was a bad strategy. Instead of opposing tort reform on its merits, the trial lawyer lobby attempted to politically decapitate the GOP majority leader. That rubbed many lawmakers – even those who oppose tort reform – the wrong way.
Beyond that, this issue seems to be among the few conservative priorities the GOP “supermajority” seems interested in pursuing – which is suddenly creating serious headwinds for a group that’s always had the wind at its back in South Carolina, home of the infamous “judicial hellholes.”
Finally, the partisan dynamic is very much at play. At its core, the trial lawyer lobby has always catered to Democratic constituencies. Which raises another sticky question: Just how involved was trial lawyer money in last year’s badly bungled attempt to take out members of the conservative S.C. Freedom Caucus? And how involved were “Republican” leaders in directing how that money was spent?
In answering those questions, the aggressive law-fare tactics routinely employed by the trial lawyer lobby could wind up being turned against them. Whispers of several imminent lawsuits have raised the specter of depositions which could conceivably prove just how complicit this special interest group was in last year’s attempt to oust the S.C. General Assembly’s conservative minority.
Trial lawyers don’t want that fight… but then again, many of them have privately told us they didn’t want the tort reform fight, either. Unfortunately for them, several of their colleagues pushed the envelope in some high-profile cases and landed the entire industry squarely in the crosshairs.
So while they may defeat Massey’s bill, as the old expression goes… “be careful what you wish for.”
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MURRELL SMITH
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STOCK: FALLING
Speaking of trial lawyers, patience with South Carolina’s second-term speaker of the House is wearing thinner with each tick of the clock. We’re now more than a month into the new legislative session, yet lawyer-legislator Murrell Smith hasn’t introduced any proposals for tackling any of his signature issues.
Smith vowed tax relief and school choice would be his chamber’s top priorities in 2025 – but he’s done nothing on either issue (and has, in fact, been outflanked on both issues).
Even Democrats are to the right of the GOP leadership on taxes…
Honestly, it’s beginning to look as though lawmakers could die of a ripe old age before Smith finally steps up to the plate. GOP caucus members are starting to grumble about it, too. Quietly, of course, because Smith tolerates dissent within his ranks about as much as Iran’s mullahs tolerate free thinking.
But state representatives can read a calendar as well as the rest of us. March is now in sight; the legislative furlough isn’t far off beyond that. That means each day that passes without Smith putting forth his proposals is a day closer to session concluding without anything being done about them.
In fairness to Smith, he is bogged down on multiple fronts. On the right, the Freedom Caucus is still nipping at his heels. After failing to bring them to heel at the ballot box last year (and losing two of his top lieutenants in the process), Smith is continuing his bid to silence the conservative wing of the party he purportedly leads.
On the other side, with the barbarians now at their gates, the trial lawyers have dug in their heels and are cracking the whip. And Smith dare not defy them because, as mentioned, they helped subsidize his unsuccessful campaign to try and neuter the Freedom Caucus – and put forward several of their own as foot soldiers.
Will this be the week Smith finally gets moving? For his sake, let’s hope so… because legislative wins on signature issues would seem to be the only way to reorient his falling trajectory.
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THE McMASTERS HENRY
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STOCK: RISING
Is it a case of ‘The Son Also Rises?’ It certainly looks that way…
We’re hearing more and more talk that Henry the Younger will soon follow in Big Daddy’s footsteps and run for attorney general of South Carolina. With Henry the Elder currently sitting in the governor’s office, that would open a lot of very important doors.
Look, the offspring of a prominent public official entering politics isn’t anything new in South Carolina. After all, the state’s current attorney general is the son of a man who has represented the Midlands in the U.S. House for almost a quarter of a century (well, when he’s not representing Ukraine). Then there was long-serving U.S. senator Strom Thurmond – who sired a solicitor and a state senator.
Some observers see Henry the Younger as a competent attorney. Others claim he’s coasted to this point on Big Daddy’s coattails (or rather his pocket square).
This much is beyond doubt, though: Henry the Elder can summon a bucket brigade of big-dollar donors and have them immediately spring into action – filling his son’s campaign coffers with wads of cash. Plus, it’s all too easy to see Henry the Elder picking up the phone, dialing the Oval Office, and saying, “Uhhh, misstuhh Prez-o-dent? Issa Henry down hee-a-yuh in sunny ’ol South Cack-uh-lack. Now lissen hee-a-yuh, I say I say I needs uh favor fo’ mah boy.”
Don’t think he can’t do it, either. And more to the point, don’t think for a second he won’t.
Not surprisingly, that prospect is causing several big-name potential contenders for this office to pause in their tracks…
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DEI IN SOUTH CAROLINA
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STOCK: PLUMMETING
These are happy times for S.C. state representative April Cromer. Stealing a line from that old country music song, “She Was Anti-Woke When Anti-Woke Wasn’t Cool.”
In a move straight out of the Radical Left’s playbook, the woke crowd took the seemingly benign, unobjectionable words “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” and used them as a smokescreen to mask nefarious discrimination and division. DEI is a dangerous construct pitting one group against another by picking victims and oppressors.
Since her election in 2022, Cromer has been at the forefront of the fight to scrub all traces of woke indoctrination from state government and public schools. Her movement picked up significant steam on November 5, 2024 when Donald Trump was re-elected president – and again on January 20, 2025 when he took office and unleashed a campaign to sanitize the federal government from DEI’s infectious influence.
Trump’s campaign is meeting with popular approval, too – which isn’t lost on state legislators, who are constantly putting their finger in the wind as part of their ongoing exercise in self-preservation.
And so all of a sudden… after years of subsidizing DEI initiatives in the state budget, it’s hip to give these measures the heave-ho. Though Cromer has been publicly complimentary of many of these fair-weather fans, she privately must be wondering to herself, “where were you when I needed you, guys?”
C’est la guerre, madame representative. C’est la guerre.
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