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by WILL FOLKS
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It’s no secret the Republican Party is facing serious political headwinds in 2026 – conditions unlikely to improve between now and the November elections.
Times are desperate for the GOP, and you know what they say about desperate times…
In reliably red South Carolina, though, conditions are far better for the ruling majority party – although polling done during the spring seemed surprisingly favorable to Democrats. More recently, serious rifts have emerged within the Republican electorate in the Palmetto State – ideological fractures which have the potential to split the GOP monolith.
Electoral math is still very much in Republicans’ favor, though. No Democrat has won a statewide election in South Carolina since 2006 – and no Democrat has won a top-of-the-ticket race since 1998.
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Trying to flip that script? State representative Jermaine Johnson and his running mate, former congressional staffer Sam Skardon. This week, the Democrat gubernatorial ticket announced it had received support from more than 17,000 individual donors – and had raised more than $1 million – in its bid to rewrite Palmetto political history.
At last count, though, the ticket had just $172.274.52 on hand as it does battle against GOP nominee Alan Wilson – the state’s four-term attorney general – and his running mate, state senator Mike Reichenbach.
According to the Johnson-Skardon campaign, its fundraising haul has been “powered almost entirely by small-dollar contributions from across the state.”
“A record number of supporters have put their own money behind this campaign, and the average gift is under forty dollars,” a statement from the campaign noted. “That tells you exactly who this campaign belongs to. It isn’t a handful of donors writing big checks. It’s teachers and retirees and folks working double shifts giving what they can, again and again, because they believe this state can do better by them. We don’t take that lightly, and we intend to earn it every day between now and November.”
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Johnson and Skardon also announced the addition of six full-time staff positions – including new campaign manager Bryanta “Bre” Booker-Maxwell.
For those of you keeping score at home, candidates’ next filing deadline with the S.C. State Ethics Commission (SCSEC) won’t come until October 10, 2026 – meaning we won’t know for sure for another month how the race is truly shaping up financially.
Wilson and Reichenbach entered the quarter with $860,655.52 in available resources, five times what the Democrat ticket had on hand to spend.
The two tickets will face off against each other on November 3, 2026 for the right to succeed Henry McMaster and his lieutenant governor, Pamela Evette. It will be the first election since 2010 when an incumbent governor hasn’t been on the ballot.
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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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