Voters get their say Tuesday in Columbia mayoral, at-large races
Columbia residents have decisions to make about the city’s future.
On Tuesday, voters will head to the polls to cast ballots in a pair of city runoff elections, one for mayor and another for an at-large seat on city council. Both positions are elected citywide.
The mayoral race pits two longtime city council members against one another: at-large Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine, who has been on council for 19 years, and District 4 Councilman Daniel Rickenmann, who has served for 12 years across two stints.
In a four-person field in the Nov. 2 election, Rickenmann got nearly 44% of the vote, while Devine got 30%. As no candidate got more than 50%, a runoff was triggered.
Rickenmann and Devine are vying to succeed Mayor Steve Benjamin, who is not seeking reelection after three terms.
Meanwhile, public health researcher Dr. Aditi Bussells and attorney Tyler Bailey are facing off in the runoff for an at-large seat. In a seven-person field on Nov. 2, Bussells got 32% of the vote, while Bailey got 26%. They are battling for the seat that has been held by Devine for two decades.
Polls will be open Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. In-person absentee voting continues through 5 p.m. Monday at 2020 Hampton St. and 2011 Hampton St. For results on Tuesday night, visit thestate.com.
The mayoral race has turned caustic in recent weeks. For instance, while the mayoral post is nonpartisan, the Republican and Democratic parties have each gotten involved, sending mailers and emails supporting their preferred candidates, and criticizing the other side. Devine is a Democrat, while Rickenmann is a Republican.
There also has been a series of campaign fliers mailed out in the race from dark money group Forward Columbia, all of which were witheringly critical of Devine, including admonishing her for pushing for pay raises for council back in 2015.
On Sunday the race was jolted again, as the University of South Carolina collegiate chapter of the NAACP posted a statement on Twitter accusing Rickenmann of not doing enough to reach out to Black students at the university. Rickenmann’s campaign has been closely associated with the “Save Five Points” student voting push at USC, which has encouraged students to cast ballots for Rickenmann and has run what were referred to on the Save Five Points Instagram as a “party bus” from the Greek Village to the polls.
The mayoral candidates have been part of a handful of candidate forums at USC, including two hosted by the Columbia Chamber and another hosted by the Theta Nu chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, an African American organization.
Accompanying the USC NAACP statement was a decades old photo purporting to show Rickenmann at a fraternity gathering. In the photo, Rickenmann is dressed in a black tuxedo and is raising a drink. Some of the people around him are dressed as Confederate soldiers, and the group is standing in front of a Confederate flag.
Rickenmann on Sunday neither confirmed nor denied it was him in the photo, though The State and others wrote about the photo in the past. In 2008, when Rickenmann was seeking re-election as a councilman, the photo was circulated on car windshields at some African American churches shortly before the election. Rickenmann went on to win that race.
Rickenmann said that when the photo surfaced in 2008, Devine defended him. However, this time around he thinks her campaign is using the photo against him.
“Tameika should be ashamed of herself,” Rickenmann said in a statement. “In 2008, she denounced this picture and defended me. Now she is using it as a desperate attempt to divide our community for her own political gain.”
Devine, meanwhile, insisted her campaign was not responsible for sharing the photo.
“For the record, my campaign did not have anything to do with releasing this photo as Daniel is trying to insinuate,” Devine said in a Sunday night statement. “I stood by Daniel when the picture surfaced in 2008. However, the state of our world is different now. As we listen to the murder trial of Ahmaud Arbery, it’s imperative we address the issues of our past so that we can move Columbia forward. This is why I am running for mayor.”
Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was shot and killed in a neighborhood near Brunswick, Ga., in February 2020. Three white men are on trial for murder in his death.
