by MARK POWELL
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Voters in South Carolina’s first congressional district went to bed on Tuesday evening (November 3, 2026) without knowing which candidate would represent them in Washington for the next two years.
They woke up to find that the blue wave which swept across the nation flipped their seat back to Democrat control for only the second time in the last forty-five years.
Retired vice admiral Nancy Lecore defeated two-term Republican county councilwoman Jenny Costa Honeycutt by only 3,308 votes – a margin just outside the one percent threshold that would have necessitated a recount. Lecore received 161,878 votes (or 49.65% of all ballots cast) compared to 158,570 votes (48.64%) for Honeycutt.
Under the S.C. code of laws (§ 7-17-280), a recount is mandatorily triggered when one candidate’s margin of victory is 1% or less of the total votes cast for that office. A losing candidate may waive a candidate-race recount in writing.
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Tuesday’s race was to determine who would succeed congresswoman Nancy Mace – a firebrand who reclaimed this seat for the GOP following the 2020 election. Mace declined to seek reelection, opting instead to try for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
In 2018, Democrat Joe Cunningham pulled off an improbable upset by defeating former governor and longtime Lowcountry Congressman Mark Sanford. He went on to serve a single term on Capitol Hill before losing to Mace.
Prior to Cunningham’s upset, Republicans held the seat from 1981-2019.
Returns showed Tuesday’s balloting split along traditional partisan lines, with Honeycutt carrying Beaufort, Colleton, and Jasper counties, and Lecore carrying Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties up the coast.
Lecore’s victory was part of a blue wave that swept Republicans from power across the country – with Democrats winning both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. At last count, Democrats and senators who caucus with them had secured 54 seats in the upper chamber – a gain of seven (7) seats – and 228 seats in the U.S. House, a gain of 25 seats.
Keep it tuned to FITSNews as we sift through the detritus of one of the most emphatic rebukes of a party in power America has ever seen.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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