What new predictions for SC’s House race between Joe Wilson, Adair Boroughs tell us
One of South Carolina’s U.S. House races has become slightly more competitive, according to a new projection.
On Thursday, the nonpartisan Sabato Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia moved South Carolina’s 2nd District Congressional race from “safe Republican” to “likely Republican” — a shift in an election year when national poll numbers show the margin narrowing for the incumbent GOP president.
The change suggests Democrat Adair Boroughs’ chances are improving to compete with U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-Springdale.
But the shift isn’t a tell-tale sign it’ll run in Democrats’ favor, said J. Miles Coleman, an associate editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, but it “could potentially get more competitive,” he said.
In its analysis, Crystal Ball also noted President Donald Trump won the district by 19 percentage points, less than the 25 percentage points 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won by.
“Ultimately, if Democrats put South Carolina in play for president and Senate — we are skeptical and rate both statewide races Likely Republican — this is the kind of place where they’d have to perform well,” Crystal Ball’s analysis said. “It makes some sense, then, to also call this district Likely Republican.”
Boroughs, a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney who lives in Forest Acres, has so far outraised Wilson this cycle, raking in more than $1.2 million to Wilson’s just under $1 million, with $715,721 cash left in the bank compared with Wilson’s $500,120 on hand.
“People are starting to notice that this isn’t a typical race we’re seeing in this district,” Boroughs wrote in an emai to The State. “I’m really encouraged to see the movement. We’re still the underdog, but I’m going to continue to do the work to make sure that everyday South Carolinians get a voice at the table this November.”
A campaign spokesman for Wilson was not immediately available for comment.
A former S.C. senator, Wilson has served in the House since a 2001 special election to fill the vacancy of the late Rep. Floyd Spence, providing the longtime congressman valuable name ID in a district that runs from Aiken to Lexington and part of Richland counties.
Wilson’s district has a “good” Democratic base as it includes part of Richland County, Coleman said.
But in the 2018 midterms — when Republicans lost the U.S. House — Wilson fell just under 60 percentage points to then-Democratic candidate Sean Carrigan, a first for the longtime member of Congress. Though this year Wilson is “still a long shot (to win), he’s mostly like going to get re-elected,” Coleman said.
Lexington County, however red, is changing some, Coleman added.
Counties such as Lexington, Greenville and Spartanburg are conservative, but “maybe not as Republican as they once were,” according to the trends, Coleman said.
