Lexington Co. Councilman faces election challenger who previously ran in another district
Voters in Lexington County won’t have many local races to vote in this election year. Only four of the nine seats on Lexington County Council are up for election this year, and of those only one race has more than one candidate.
County Councilman Todd Cullum is running for his sixth four-year term in a Republican primary against former South Congaree Town Councilman Bobby Porter on June 14. Both men are vying to represent District 9, which covers the Cayce area as well as Pine Ridge and South Congaree.
Porter is a former candidate for county council. Prior to the latest round of redistricting, Porter ran against Gene “Bimbo” Jones as a Democrat in the Red Bank-centered District 5. Because of redistricting following the 2020 Census, Porter now lives in District 9.
He said he’s changed his political stripes since the last election. “It was clear to me that my ideas and ideology didn’t line up with any Democrat,” Porter said to The State. “I did some inner soul searching and thought, is this the right thing for me to support? And I was moving more toward Republican thoughts.”
A general contractor who currently serves on the Lexington County Water and Sewer Commission, Porter said he wants to focus on serving the people of District 9 as Lexington County continues to grapple with some of the fastest growth in the state.
“Growth is good for economic development if it’s managed well, but we’re seeing the deterioration of our existing infrastructure,” Porter said, citing the condition of county roads and utility infrastructure.
The county is moving forward with a planned November referendum on a sales tax that would primarily fund road improvements, but Porter is skeptical of asking citizens to pay more.
“I don’t want to use our citizens as a revenue stream, whether it’s a sales tax or added service fees,” he said.
For his part, Cullum, who served as county council’s chairman last year, said he wants another term to “continue to serve the community in which I grew up” and to take care of some “unfinished business.”
“I want to continue to try to make Lexington County as attractive as we can for industry,” Cullum said. In his time on council, the county has added three industrial parks with more than $600 million of direct investment, he said.
Lexington County is known for its schools, he said, “and we want to provide an environment that makes industry feel welcome, so our students can use the education they’re attaining.”
Cullum also wants a bigger focus on roads and traffic, saying that was part of the impetus behind last year’s moratorium on construction of new housing subdivisions as Lexington County tightened its development rules.
“The state is not going to fund a local road system,” he said. “We need to provide better maintenance of the county system.”
No other candidate filed to run against the GOP primary winner in the Nov. 8 general election. Three other council incumbents — Larry Brigham, Beth Carrigg and Glen Conwell — are running unopposed.
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