Rural Republicans will decide Upstate SC's newest member of Congress. It's anyone's guess who. (2024)

PICKENS — If a complete stranger to South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District wandered into the Pickens County Performing Arts Center to watch Republican hopefuls debate on April 28, they might at first be stunned by the relative diversity of the candidates.

There were three White men — like most of modern Congress — but they were a minority in a field that includes two women, one Black man and a second-generation Cuban-American.

Their backgrounds were diverse as well: one was a telecommunications executive, another a preacher, then a small business owner, a mental health nurse, a health policy expert and a former aide to a U.S. senator.

But with a once-in-a-generation chance to represent South Carolina’s most conservative U.S. House district, that’s essentially where their differences ended.

How we got here

Since 2010, the sprawling 3rd Congressional District had been represented by Republican Jeff Duncan, a charismatic former state representative with one of the most conservative voting records in Congress.

No Democratic candidate since Barack Obama had ever earned more than 35 percent of the vote here and through more than a dozen years in office, Duncan never faced a primary challenge.

Then his wife accused him of infidelity in a divorce filing and Duncan, once seen as untouchable, no longer had a path forward. And the floodgates opened.

When filing closed, seven candidates had submitted themselves for the June 11 ballot. And with the exception of one of them — South Carolina Rep. Stewart Jones, R-Laurens — none had ever held elected office.

In South Carolina, there is arguably no place more difficult to get your name out than the 3rd District. Spanning 10 counties and three television media markets, the region lacks any clear population center. And the towns that define the district — the bookish region around Clemson University, the manufacturing hubs of Laurens and Newberry, the deep-red rural areas around places like Belton and Pickens — have little in common.

“The only thing that genuinely unifies this particular district is being Republican,” Danielle Vinson, a professor of politics and international affairs at Furman University said in an interview.

The rural nature of the district, in a way, is also its great equalizer in a district where fundraising at the outside was minimal, with all seven candidates having raised only $750,000 combined.

That fundraising number is even less impressive when you realize one-third of the total raised — $250,000 — came directly out of candidate Sheri Biggs’ pocketbook. She has more cash on hand than any other candidate, reporting $314,417 as of the most recent fundraising quarter.

Pastor Mark Burns, meanwhile, has loaned his campaign a half-million dollars, but has substantially more than that in debt.

But in a race like this, Vinson said, it’s not about how many people you reach, it’s about who you reach.

“In a primary particularly, you’re not necessarily having to move large numbers of people,” Vinson said. “You just have to move enough.”

Known entities

Some candidates won’t be entering the race as strangers.

Slim, tall and soft-spoken, Jones is one of the few known entities in the race.

He speaks rarely in the Statehouse. And when he does, it’s in a measured delivery on policies favored by the hardline SC House Freedom Caucus, of which he is a founding member. But as a policymaker and candidate, Jones — who did not make himself available after several requests for an interview for this story — is a flamethrower for South Carolina’s right wing.

Jones rose to statewide prominence in 2020 as a leader of a movement to lift restrictions on businesses and eliminate mask mandates mere months into the COVID-19 pandemic. As a legislator, he championed policies to ban gender-affirming care for minors and tighten voter registration laws.

He led efforts in 2021 for South Carolina to withdraw from the National School Board Association after a memo from the organization asked President Joe Biden to authorize law enforcement to respond to “growing threats” posed to them by parents.

Earlier this spring, Jones launched his campaign with an advertisem*nt focusing on the death of his goddaughter in a traffic accident involving an undocumented migrant.

He also has friends in high places. Other than Burns, he’s the only candidate to have earned national television exposure and has netted endorsem*nts ranging from icons of the Libertarian movement like national politicians Ron Paul and Thomas Massie, to Upstate State Sen. Richard Cash, an outspoken abortion foe.

Burns, meanwhile, is already well-known. In 2022, he earned nearly one-quarter of the vote in the more moderate 4th Congressional District to finish second to sitting congressman William Timmons.

He also has the endorsem*nt of Donald Trump, for whom Burns serves as an informal spiritual advisor. The same day Trump was in court on allegations he’d paid for a former adult film star’s silence during the 2016 presidential election (and the same day someone self-immolated outside of the courtroom), Burns claimed the former president had called him for his counsel, and that they spoke on the phone for nearly 25 minutes.

“I can say, simply, the president is very closely watching the direction of our campaign,” he said in an interview. “He wants to see this succeed.”

Burns claims critical race theory is “propaganda” but regularly cites radical civil rights leaders like Ralph Abernathy as heroes. He said he believes “we need to have a standard in America” for what lifestyles are acceptable, yet insists he would not seek to dismantle gay marriage.

“I’m not their pastor,” he said of voters.

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“We are broke fiscally, mentally and spiritually. Career politicians have done nothing but make this problem worse,” she told a small group of Republicans gathered in Easley in April.

“At this difficult time, our country and our district need a strong political outsider to take on this fight” she added. “And I definitely think it’s one worth fighting for.”

Her military background is a major appeal for some voters. Pickens County has more Medal of Honor winners per capita than any other county in the nation.

Scotty Ginn, a 57-year-old Liberty resident, donned a red “Sheri Biggs for Congress” T-shirt at the event April 16 and applauded as Biggs made her way to the stage.

Ginn, whose wife works for the local veterans affairs office, liked Biggs’ passion for veterans issues. When he heard she was running for Congress, he helped connect her to local veterans groups for campaign events.

“She really respects and represents veterans,” he said.

But Biggs is not as much of a political outsider as she claims to be.

Sheri and her husband Bill have a longstanding relationship with Gov. Henry McMaster. McMaster has flown on the Biggs’ private plane chartered by their company HMR Veterans’ Services more than any other individual, according to state records. McMaster endorsed Biggs April 24. Several of Duncan’s former political aides have joined Biggs’ campaign, including campaign consultant Lance Williams.

Biggs brushed aside claims that she is “Jeff Duncan 2.0.” She and her husband supported Duncan because of his conservative voting record, but she said that was the extent of their relationship.

“I did not know him like that,” she said.

From Graham’s office

In many ways, Kevin Bishop is the opposite of a fiery fringe orator like Burns. More tempered in his delivery, clean-cut and khaki-clad, Bishop is often described by potential voters as smart and likable.

With nearly three decades of Washington experience already under his belt, Bishop represents the mainline establishment Republican position in this race. He served as Lindsey Graham’s communications director for 27 years, a connection that could either help — or hurt — depending on who you ask.

“There are some Lindsey Graham lovers and Lindsey Graham haters even though he is a Republican,” said Newberry County GOP chair Steve Wilson.

At the debate in Pickens, the host asked Bishop about the popularity (or lack thereof) of his former boss, who was booed relentlessly at Trump’s Fourth of July rally in Pickens in 2023.

Trump didn’t like that, Bishop said.

“We need every Republican vote in that November election,” he said.

There’s another candidate who is gathering steam: Simpsonville businessman Franky Franco, who is doing particularly well in Oconee County due to its growing Latino community, said local GOP chair Jim Mann. Oconee County’s Latino population has increased 30 percent since 2010, according to census data.

Franco has focused his efforts on new Facebook, YouTube and TV ads that draw on his family’s story of legal immigration from Cuba to build “the American dream.”

“He’s certainly an up-and-comer that needs to be watched and taken very seriously,” Mann said.

What it takes

It’s been unsurprising most of the candidates have been focusing their attention on the western half of the district.

While Anderson County will often be competitive between several candidates in closely contested primaries, Oconee — whose chairman, Jim Mann, says is leaning toward Biggs and Jones — and Pickens counties will vote closely together. Others like Laurens County, where Duncan and Jones hail from, tends to exhibit loyalty to their native sons and daughters. But other parts of the district are tougher to predict.

“It’s almost compartments of different communities, which I guess is natural, but they really do kind of behave different,” said Jay West, a Republican state representative from Belton and a lifelong resident of the district.

Hard-to-reach places in the district could be wildcards.

Newberry County, on the eastern fringe of the district, is more Midlands than Upstate, with its namesake city more bedroom community to the capital city of Columbia than standalone rural community. It is also something of a political orphan: Up until this past U.S. Census, the area was part of the 5th Congressional District, represented by Ralph Norman.

Other places like Edgefield County — a predominantly rural county that has been historically emblematic of the state’s backcountry Republican influence — could also make a difference in the margins.

But pockets like this aren’t easily canvassed. Edgefield County alone encompasses about 500 square miles, and takes a full day to travel by car. It’s difficult to reach people merely by television, and campaign forums can’t take place in a centralized location, meaning candidates must take their campaigns town-by-town, county-by-county to succeed.

“In a lot of areas, it’s going to be boots on the ground,” Suzanne Spurgeon, chair of the local Republican Party said. “It’s getting out and meeting the people. Especially here in Edgefield. They want to know who you are.”

At this point, it’s truly anyone’s game.

“No one would actually try to predict what’s going to happen in the primary,” Vinson said.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to note Franky Franco is not a pastor.