Third South Carolina Democrat joins race to unseat McMaster
(The Center Square) – Three candidates now are seeking the Democratic Party’s nod to challenge incumbent Gov. Henry McMaster in 2022 and unseat Republicans from South Carolina’s Governor’s Mansion for the first since 1998.
If the newest challenger, state Sen. Mia McLeod, D-Richland, wins her party’s primary and defeats McMaster in the general election, she’d be the first Democrat to win statewide office in 15 years, South Carolina’s second female governor and the first Black woman to serve as a governor in U.S. history.
McLeod, a three-term House representative serving her second term in the Senate, confirmed Thursday long-established hints she will run for governor in a Twitter announcement followed by a news conference.
“I’m running for Governor of South Carolina,” McLeod tweeted. “It’s time we say NO to business as usual and stand up to the good ole boys who have never failed to put their own interests above ours.”
The tweet included a two-minute video announcing her campaign that recalls her roots in rural Bennettsville as an example of how “politicians have forgotten about all but those who agree with them or fund their campaigns.”
Appearing Thursday morning at Columbia’s Modjeska Monteith Simkins House, which honors the civil rights advocate who died in 1992, McLeod said, “I’m a fifth generation South Carolinian, born and raised right here. I used to visit here with my dad when I was a college student.”
McLeod was elected to the South Carolina House in 2010 and served three terms before winning a seat in the state Senate in 2016.
Before running for office, McLeod was a communications consultant appointed by then-Gov. Jim Hodges to direct the State Office of Victim Assistance at the state probation department.
During a January Senate debate over abortion access and whether victims of rape should be compelled to keep their child, McLeod revealed on the chamber floor that she was a victim of sexual assault.
Diagnosed with sickle cell disease, McLeod was among lawmakers who stayed home during the 2020 and 2021 sessions or sat in gallery chambers.
McLeod issued the Democratic response to McMaster’s State of the State address this year, ripping him for taking the state to a “bleak” place, arguing he reopened too quickly, never instituted a statewide mask mandate and rushed students back into five-day-a-week, in-person classrooms.
McLeod joins former U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham and activist Gary Votour as the other two announced candidates seeking the Democratic nod to unseat McMaster in November 2022.
Cunningham flipped his congressional district from red to blue for the first time in decades in 2018 only to lose reelection to Republican Nancy Mace in 2020. He launched his campaign in April and has begun a statewide tour of all 46 counties.
“I want to welcome Sen. Mia McLeod to the race for governor and congratulate her on the historical significance of her campaign,” Cunningham said in a statement. “Mia brings an important voice to this race, and I look forward to spending time with her on the trail as we make our case to voters.”
McMaster, seeking reelection for a second full term in office, is the only Republican in the race. Greenville businessman John Warren and state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey of Edgefield are among those rumored to be pondering bids.
South Carolina state GOP committee chair Drew McKissick dismissed McLeod’s entry into the 2022 gubernatorial race, noting Democrats lose statewide races in South Carolina “because like McLeod, they’re wrong on the issues that voters care about.”
“We look forward to electing a Republican governor in 2022 and flipping McLeod’s state senate seat in the near future,” McKissick said.
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