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by WILL FOLKS
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U.S. congressman Ralph Norman – arguably the most fiscally conservative candidate running for governor of South Carolina in 2026 – launched the first television advertisement of his gubernatorial campaign on Monday (March 23, 2026).
Entitled ‘Crooks,’ Norman’s ad took direct aim at the culture of corruption in Columbia, S.C., home to the most fiscally liberal “Republican” legislature in the nation for many years.
“Lawmakers voted to give themselves a pay raise,” Norman began, “paid for with your tax dollars.”
That’s a reference to this scandal – one of many we have broken in which so-called “conservative” politicians put their interests ahead of citizens and taxpayers.
As FITSNews exclusively reported last April, the overwhelming majority of South Carolina’s so-called “Republican” supermajority voted to give themselves an additional $25,500 apiece in taxpayer-funded compensation over an eighteen-month period. They did this despite the clear language of the S.C. Constitution (Article III, Section 19), which holds that “no General Assembly shall have the power to increase the per diem of its own members.”
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Thankfully, the S.C. supreme court struck down this unconstitutional pay raise after state senator Wes Climer – who is running to replace Norman in congress – filed a lawsuit opposing it.
“Columbia politicians are a bunch of crooks,” Norman said in reference to the pay hike. “Raising their pay. Not fixing our roads. State spending is up 45%. Wasted on garbage.”
State spending is indeed surging, with so-called “Republican” House members recently approving a massive $42.6 billion budget. That’s a whopping 8.75% increase over the previous year’s spending plan.
FITSNews has documented extensively over the years how “Republican” lawmakers join with Democrats to blow billions of dollars in new money each year – including surplus funds that should’ve been pumped back into the economy (i.e. back into your wallets, pocketbooks and small businesses).
We’ve also documented how they refuse to embrace fiscally conservative proposals like zero-based budgeting and caps on excessive spending growth.
Norman vowed he would “clean up Columbia starting with term limits to stop the corruption.”
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Norman is one of six announced candidates for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. The others are four-term attorney general Alan Wilson, first district congresswoman Nancy Mace, lieutenant governor Pamela Evette, state senator Josh Kimbrell and Lowcountry businessman Rom Reddy.
Two Democrats – state representative Jermaine Johnson and wealthy trial lawyer Mullins McLeod – have announced their intention to seek their party’s nomination, while a third prospective candidate (Upstate businessman Billy Webster) is said to be waiting in the wings.
As we’ve often reminded our audience, the GOP race is – for better or worse – the one to watch. Democrats haven’t won a statewide election in South Carolina since 2006 – and no Democrat has won a governor’s race since 1998. The last Democrat gubernatorial nominee, former U.S. congressman Joe Cunningham, received an abysmal 40.67% of the vote in 2022.
Filing for partisan primary elections closes one week from today (at 12:00 p.m. EDT on March 30, 2026). At that point, barring any petition candidates, the field will be set for the election cycle. Partisan primary elections are scheduled for Tuesday, June 9, 2026. In the event no candidate wins a majority of votes on the first ballot, a head-to-head runoff election between the top two vote-getters would be held two weeks later (on June 23, 2026) to determine which candidate wins their party’s nomination.
Norman was polling in fourth place in most recent surveys, although he led all GOP contenders in cash on hand at the end of the last reporting period – and has significant personal wealth he can pump into the race, if necessary.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
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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2 comments
As we approach our third decade of Republican rule in SC, the people of our state are near the bottom of every measure of a successful society. Our people have higher than average poverty, lower than average health, lower than average life expectancy, lower than average income, sub-par primary, secondary, and higher education for our children, and lower than average net worth. Now we have Republicans accusing Republicans of being corrupt.
Well, I hear you, and agree. So what is the solution you offer? Elect more Republicans, of course. Republicans who will slap makeup on a pig and say everything is beautiful. It seems to me that all Republicans are corrupt and/or immoral. We have a President who lies, cheats, steals, molests women, covers up the sex crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his friends (one of whom may be him), gets us into stupid wars that costs billions of dollars, and uses his office to enrich himself, his family, and billionaires who give money to him; all while running up the largest deficit in history and killing jobs, and Republicans who cover it all up for him.
If you can’t stand up and speak out against all of that, you are part of the corruption. Don’t vote for Republicans. It’s the only way to restore some form of normal government that works for the average person and not the Epstein Billionaire class. We have to start over and give someone else a chance to do good. We don’t have anyone who cares about the people of South Carolina now. To paraphrase Einstein, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity.
Republicans fail at governing because their only ideas are new ways of hurting people. The republican party platform is just “Hate”.