SC Democratic governor nominee says Biden should ‘step aside’ in 2024 for someone younger
South Carolina’s Democratic nominee for governor said on national television Thursday that he would tell President Joe Biden, if asked, to “step aside” in 2024 to let someone younger run so as to let a “new generation” emerge.
“If President Biden were here with me right now, and he were asking me my opinion — whether or not he should run for another term or whether he should step aside and allow for a new generation to emerge, I would tell him the latter,” Cunningham said.
When asked to clarify, Cunningham told the news anchor he wants a new generation of leadership and cited Biden’s 2020 statement saying he wants to be a bridge to the future generations of democracy.
Cunningham won the statewide primary this month to take on Republican incumbent Gov. Henry McMaster in November. He served one term in Congress representing the state’s 1st Congressional District, but lost in 2020 to U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-Daniel Island.
During his first run in 2018, Biden endorsed Cunningham and traveled to South Carolina to help his campaign.
Cunningham said on CNN Thursday that he was not making a personal statement about Biden but rather was calling on voters to look toward the future, saying “no one knows what’s on the other side of the bridge (of the future).”
Biden was sworn in in 2021 as the oldest president in the nation’s history at age 78.
Cunningham on CNN also weighed in on former House colleague Jim Clyburn — the third-ranking Democrat in the House who won his primary and will be 82 in July.
Cunningham said he has no personal issue with Clyburn, but questioned how legislators are able to make laws if South Carolina judges are required to retire at age 72 from interpreting the law.
Clyburn’s spokesman declined to comment.
Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina-based Democratic political strategist and Clyburn ally, said Cunningham’s actions are a distraction.
“I don’t think this is going to change the hearts and minds of voters who may not normally be Democratic voters, and make them switch parties in terms of voting for him. But I do think that this could be used as a distraction more than anything, instead of staying focused on quality of life issues,” Seawright said.
“I also know if it wasn’t for Jim Clyburn, South Carolina and particularly in communities that look like mine, (they) would not have benefited from anyone in government service the way he has delivered for the state of South Carolina.”
Cunningham releases first general election ad
Cunningham’s remarks came a day after he released his first general election ad, first reported by the Associated Press.
In the two-minute ad, Cunningham calls for for age limits for politicians and said voters face a “geriatric oligarchy.”
Cunningham specifically called out Gov. Henry McMaster, who is 75.
If reelected to a second term in November, McMaster will become the state’s longest-serving governor after he became governor in 2017 when then-Gov. Nikki Haley resigned to join the Trump administration. At the time, McMaster was the lieutenant governor.
“Maybe it’s just a coincidence that we have the oldest Congress in our nation’s history and we are at a partisan gridlock. And nothing is getting done. And maybe it’s just a coincidence that South Carolina is last in roads and at the bottom of health care and education, and we have the oldest governor in our state’s history,” Cunningham told CNN. “But how many coincidences are gonna stack up before we notice a correlation?”
In response, McMaster’s campaign spokesman, Mark Knoop, said, “South Carolina is on the move — thanks to the leadership, hard work and ingenuity of people of all ages and backgrounds. For Joe Cunningham to propose an age limit on public service or progress is an insult to every senior in this state.”
Cunningham has proposed putting age limits on public officials that would assert an age cap similar to the regulation set for airline pilots, federal law enforcement officers and the 72-year-old age limit for state judges.
The ad also criticizes career politicians, saying many elected officials have been in office “way past their prime.”
“The folks who are making a career out of politics are making a mess of our country,” Cunningham says in the ad. “That’s why it’s time to put term limits and age limits on politicians, to bring new blood and new ideas to the table.”
Cunningham, 40, has frequently referred to his campaign as the “past versus the future” and as “new ideas versus no ideas.”
This story was originally published June 23, 2022 at 12:42 PM.
