SC Senate GOP Caucus spent nearly $315,000 in failed bid to flip 2 Midlands seats

The S.C. Senate GOP Caucus spent $312,993 in a failed bid to flip two Midlands Senate seats from blue to red in November.

Despite that spending blitz, Democrat Mia McLeod won the Nov. 8 general election for Richland County’s District 22 Senate seat and Democrat Mike Fanning won the District 17 Senate seat, which includes Fairfield County.

Both seats previously had been held by Democrats.

According to GOP Caucus spending documents and S.C. Ethics Commission filings, Senate Republicans spent:

▪  $181,105 in the District 22 race in support of GOP candidate Susan Brill or on ads targeting McLeod

▪  $131,888 in the District 17 race in support of GOP candidate Mark Palmer or on ads attacking Fanning

The GOP Caucus’ ads questioned McCleod’s legislative attendance record and her consulting contracts with the City of Columbia. The caucus also ran attack ads against Fanning, who faced allegations of an inappropriate relationship in 1993 with a former student. The State Law Enforcement Division is investigating those allegations, which Fanning has declared “totally untrue.”

"In no way, shape or form did I do anything that I was accused of doing," Fanning said.

Fanning said the GOP Caucus’ attack ads were an attempt to bait him. Instead, he said he let voters decide whether to believe the ads.

Despite the six-figure spending on mailers, door hangers, TV ads and robocalls, Republicans failed to swing voters.

In part, that was because McLeod and Fanning were good candidates, said Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield.

Despite the losses, Massey said he did not regret the spending. “We had two good candidates, so it was worth the investment.”

The Senate Democratic Caucus won’t say how much it spent to support McLeod and Fanning.

However, the GOP Caucus spent more than twice as much on the two races as the Democratic Caucus’ operating expenses – $130,238 – for the last half of 2016, which included the general election.

“They outspent us tremendously in those two races,” said state Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg.

The spending by the two caucuses was in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars that the candidates raised on their own.

According to the candidates’ most recent ethics filings:

▪  In the Senate 22 race, Democrat McLeod raised $220,987. Republican candidate Brill raised $288,265, including $90,000 in loans.

▪  In the Senate 17 race, Democrat Fanning raised $92,634, including $45,000 in loans. Republican candidate Palmer raised $23,636.

Transparency vs. dark money?

Massey said he made his caucus’ spending records available to The Buzz in an effort to be open.

“It’s important that the public knows who is spending money on elections and how much is being spent,” Massey said. “We have an obligation to be transparent with the voters.”

The subject of transparency in campaign spending is a hot one in the state Senate, where several members want to go to ban “dark money” groups.

Those groups do not reveal their donors or how much money they receive. The groups then use the money to push their political agenda or try to defeat candidates.

For example, during the Senate’s debate of raising the state’s gas tax, the S.C. branch of the anti-tax Americans for Prosperity group launched robocalls into senators’ districts, opposing a tax hike.

In response, unhappy senators criticized Americans for Prosperity, saying it relied on dark money and was tied to the billionaire Koch brothers, whose business empire ranges from paper products to refineries to transportation.

This story was originally published January 13, 2017 at 12:01 AM with the headline "SC Senate GOP Caucus spent nearly $315,000 in failed bid to flip 2 Midlands seats."