Who will come out on top of crowded 5th District GOP primary?

Tuesday’s GOP special primary in the 5th District is likely to turn into a contest between two York County legislators.

The wildcards?

▪ Can a former chairman of the S.C. GOP crash the runoff party?

▪ Can any of the other four GOP candidates — busy invoking the name of Donald Trump — catch fire and stage a Trumpian upset?

Seven Republicans are competing in Tuesday’s special primary to be the 5th District’s next congressman, hoping to succeed former U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-Indian Land, who turned the district GOP red after decades of Democratic domination.

That flip could give the eventual winner – likely to come from a two-person GOP run-off on May 16 – the chance to serve in Washington for a long time.

 

The two GOP candidates favored to make the runoff have been state legislators, representing the heart of the 5th District: former state Rep. Ralph Norman, a York County developer; and former Susan Smith prosecutor Tommy Pope, R-York, now the speaker pro tempore of the S.C. House.

Also in the hunt are Chad Connelly of Newberry, a former state GOP chairman; Ray Craig of Clover, a former international-aid worker; Sheri Few of Lugoff, a longtime conservative activist and former candidate for S.C. education superintendent; attorney Tom Mullikin of Camden, commander of the S.C. State Guard; and libertarian-leaning attorney Kris Wampler of Indian Land.

Pope and Norman come into the race in the strongest position, said Scott Huffmon, a political scientist at Rock Hill’s Winthrop University.

Both have established reputations in the most voter-heavy part of the district, which stretches from the N.C. line to the Midlands, including Fairfield, Kershaw, Newberry and Sumter counties.

“A lot of it is driven by name recognition and familiarity,” Huffmon said. “But Connelly could move up because he’s well-known by party insiders, and he comes across good on stage.”

As long as no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote Tuesday, the top two candidates will meet in a runoff.

“This is a race for who will finish third,” said David Woodard, a Clemson University political scientist and, sometimes, GOP consultant. “Connelly, Norman and Pope are all viable candidates, and one of them will lose out.”

Donald Trump and the Confederate flag

The GOP candidates have tried to tap into the same outsider energy that propelled Donald Trump to the presidency just six months ago.

Like Trump, Mullikin is a businessman with no prior political experience. Few, who has attacked legislators Norman and Pope as “weak” for voting to take down the Confederate flag, has adopted the slogan “Make America America Again.”

It’s a strategy that has limits, Woodard thinks.

“The Trump model works once in a lifetime,” he said. “What we just experienced (in 2016) was like winning the game on the last play of the fourth quarter.”

But it could work, especially in a low-turnout special election, Woodward added. “In a primary — where you might get 12 to 15 percent of the electorate (voting) — it’s going to be the most committed people voting.”

“Each candidate in some way or another, is trying to reflect President Trump,” said Tyler Griffin, chairman of the York County Republican Party.

“Whether that’s in their use of social media or support for increased security on the border,” he said. “Every candidate is trying to portray themselves as the outsider.”

Most don’t see the Confederate flag as a decisive issue in the race, despite Few’s efforts to rally flag supporters.

“Some voters in 2015 weren’t happy” when the flag came down at the State House, Griffin said. “But I think the primary issues in the race are Obamacare and national security.”

Woodard, who has worked on prior Republican campaigns, doesn’t think the flag has enough support left to swing the election.

“Most people in the Republican Party are glad to get it behind us,” he said. “I did some surveys of business leaders during the (former S.C. Gov. David) Beasley administration, and I got the feeling many just wished it would go away.”

Democratic pick up?

The winner of Tuesday’s GOP primary will face the winner of Tuesday’s three-person Democratic primary in a June general election.

However, the 5th District has been trending more heavily Republican for years.

Mulvaney won election four times by margins of between 10 and 20 percentage points. His closest race — his first, in 2010 — was against incumbent Rep. John Spratt, D-York, a 10.3 point win for the Republican.

Despite a surge in the Democratic vote in other special elections across the country, it will be hard for Democrats to take back the 5th District, Huffmon said.

“Fran Person on paper was a good candidate,” Huffmon said, referring to the Democratic candidate against Mulvaney last November, “and he lost the district by more than Hillary Clinton lost statewide.

“The district had a 29 percent black voting-age population before the last reapportionment (in 2010), and since then it’s gone down to 26 percent,” Huffmon said. “It’s not just uphill, but it’s getting steeper.”

York GOP chair Griffin said he wasn’t worried about Democrats matching the outcome of close special elections in Kansas and Georgia.

“In Kansas, you had a (Republican) governor who is not popular,” Griffin said. “In Georgia, they had a ‘jungle primary,’ ” in which 15 candidates — Republicans and Democrats —were on the same ballot.

That should leave the eventual GOP nominee in the 5th District as the favorite to win in the June 20 special election.

“South Carolina’s so red,” Clemson’s Woodard said, “it’s sunburned.”

This story was originally published April 28, 2017 at 5:43 PM with the headline "Who will come out on top of crowded 5th District GOP primary?."