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by WILL FOLKS
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A South Carolina businessman who served in the presidential administration of Bill Clinton plans to campaign for the Palmetto State governor’s office in 2026, multiple sources familiar with his thinking have confirmed to FITSNews.
William M. “Billy” Webster IV of Greenville, S.C. will run as a Democrat, these sources say – which would make him the perpetual minority party’s third announced candidate for South Carolina’s constitutionally neutered chief executive office.
Previously, state representative Jermaine Johnson of Hopkins, S.C. and wealthy trial lawyer Mullins McLeod of Charleston, S.C. have announced they are seeking the Democrat nomination – which in recent years has become a one-way ticket to electoral irrelevance.
No Democrat has 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.
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Can Webster reorient that calculus?
According to his home page on Clinton’s presidential library website, the native South Carolinian was a member of Clinton’s presidential transition team and a chief of staff to former S.C. governor Richard W. Riley – both during his tenure as the Palmetto State’s chief executive and later during his time as secretary of education under Clinton. Webster was also Clinton’s director of scheduling during his first term in office.
After leaving government, Webster was one of the co-founders of Advance America, a payday lending company which was purchased in 2012 for $780 million by Grupo Elektra, a company owned by Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego.
Advance America was frequently accused of running afoul of consumer protection laws. In May 2012, the company agreed to pay $18.75 million to more than 140,000 North Carolina consumers in the wake of a class action lawsuit it was facing.
“Advance America and other payday lenders are operating illegally in North Carolina,” a 2004 release from the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) noted.
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Webster insisted during his career that his company “offers low-cost, transparent, and convenient credit with meaningful consumer protections” – blaming “misconceptions” about his industry for the criticism it received.
“As Americans’ credit needs evolve, efforts to restrict access to payday loans and other short-term lending threaten consumer interests,” Webster claimed.
In addition to his payday lending career, Webster has been involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors.
According to his recent application (.pdf) to serve on a Greenville County sales tax commission, his family has “been in Greenville for over 150 years.”
“I have a deep affection and sense of obligation to this community,” Webster wrote. “In addition, I have been in business and politics for over forty years and can bring that experience to bear on this responsibility.”
According to Follow the Money, Webster has donated nearly $800,000 to more than 300 candidates or political entities over the past quarter century. Of that sum, a whopping $579,000 was routed to Democrat candidates.
South Carolina candidates will formally file paperwork to seek statewide offices between March 15-30, 2026, with partisan primary elections 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).
The general election will be held on November 3, 2026.
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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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4 comments
A costly vanity project for this inexperienced, unprepared, political neophyte. His donations bought him access to the Clintons but no preparation for running a state. He can shill (usually) good fried chicken, use a Day Timer and take advantage of the financially disadvantaged – what other skills doe he bring to the table?
Oh yeah, he “cowrote” a fiction story that is number 191,531 on Amazon’s best sellers list, his coauthor Dick Lochte did most of the work. Lochte is famous as an author, “coauthor” and ghost writer.
The Clinton Derangement Syndrome is still strong in the cult. Mention Clinton and Trump cult member start foaming at the mouth. This is the politician you choose to speak out about? You accuse this man of taking advantage of the financially disadvantaged? Really? How can anyone take you seriously? You have a military background, but cannot bother to acknowledge the nightmare our country is going through right now. We have a SecDef who is nothing more than a vain, inexperienced, unqualified alcoholic Fox News anchor, who loves to look at himself in the mirror of his makeup room and relishes every opportunity to beat his chest and kill people, with no rules of engagement. Our military service members and the public are being forced to put up are with a mentally compromised felon President who has been accused of raping at least one child, who has enriched himself and his family at the expense of the country, and who will do anything, including war, to cover up his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. A man who can’t spend ten minutes talking about our troops and the war without diverting the conversation to his big beautiful ballroom. A man who called the fallen heroes of the Battle of Belleau Wood losers and suckers, and disparaged every Vietnam POW (the war he dodged with his fake bone spurs).
The incompetence of this Administration has already cost us 6 Army Reservists, the lives of over a hundred elementary school children, has gotten two of our jets shot down by our allies, and wasted billions upon billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
How many lifelong enemies of our country will arise from watching the coffins of Iranian children being marched through the streets?
Let’s give the guy who invented predatory lending keys to the budget. Surprise! He is a white democrat.