Democrat SC Sen. Mia McLeod launches 2022 campaign for governor
South Carolina Sen. Mia McLeod, one of five women to serve in the state Legislature’s upper chamber who over the past year used her platform to deride the governor’s COVID-19 health protocols, announced Thursday she is running for governor in 2022.
The Richland County Democrat held a formal announcement Thursday at Columbia’s Modjeska Monteith Simkins House, honoring the civil rights advocate who died in 1992. On Thursday, she released a roughly two-minute ad announcing her campaign.
“This is Bennettsville, South Carolina. A place so neglected by so many for so long that some even call it the, ‘corridor of shame.’ It’s the place where I was born. It’s the place that shaped me. And the truth is, all across South Carolina, we share similar stories, stories of love, of faith, of defying the odds,” McLeod says in the ad, along photos of her as a child and her hometown. “But far too often across this state, we also share stories of struggle and neglect because politicians have forgotten about all but those who agree with them or fund their campaigns.”
McLeod, 52, is the first Black woman to run for governor in South Carolina.
She now stands with a handful of Black women nationwide seeking higher office after Stacey Abrams’ gubernatorial campaign in Georgia in 2018 and Kamala Harris’ historic rise from Democratic presidential candidate to vice president in 2020. Also in South Carolina, state Rep. Krystle Matthews, D-Berkeley, announced in April her bid against U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate.
“I’ve been fighting the status quo for 10 years, and I’m still fighting, taking on the fights no one else will, even when I fight alone.” McLeod said Thursday, standing in front of former and state lawmakers.
McLeod is the third Democrat to launch a campaign for governor, after former U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham and activist Gary Votour.
On Thursday, Cunningham, who has been traveling to each county, said he welcomed McLeod to the race.
“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.”
As far as registered voters in the state, South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Trav Robertson said women outnumber men, and women are demanding their voices be heard. Robertson added the primary process will be fair and equitable to anyone who enters.
“I’m here to tell you today we are going to see one of the most exciting gubernatorial primaries that the state of South Carolina has ever seen,” he said.
So far, incumbent Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has no high-profile primary challengers who have announced, though rumors still remain that McMaster’s 2018 challenger, Republican John Warren of Greenville, and Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, could still run.
State ethics disclosures show Mindy Steele of Berkeley County has opened a campaign fundraising account, with $500 on hand from a personal contribution as of her May 28 filing date. Steele told The State by text message Thursday she plans to file to run in the Republican primary, campaigning on education reform and transparency in higher education.
McLeod’s intention to run for governor was hardly a secret.
She often retweeted supporters who called on her to run and added her own tweets — with the hashtag “#2022” — to the mix.
McLeod, who runs a communications consulting firm, was first elected to the state House in 2010, then to the Senate in 2016, serving District 22, which includes parts of Kershaw and Richland counties.
McLeod gave the Democrats’ response to McMaster’s 2021 State of the State address, a slot typically reserved for a high-profile Democrat, who most often will use the moment to build a platform for higher office.
In her remarks, she zeroed in on what she called McMaster’s “colossal failure” to mitigate the state’s COVID-19 outbreak by focusing on partisan policies, including restricting abortion access, she said.
McLeod made headlines in January when, during a tense Senate debate over abortion access and whether victims of rape should be compelled to keep their child, she told the chamber she was a victim of sexual assault.
McLeod, who is public about her sickle cell disease diagnosis, was among senators who either stayed home or sat in the gallery above the Senate chamber to avoid contracting the virus during this year’s legislative session. She was typically seen wearing a mask and, as some others did, wearing gloves.
Her GOP challenger in the 2020 Senate election often dinged her for failing to come to the Legislature’s work session amid COVID-19.
She beat him by more than 24 percentage points.
In her speech Thursday, McLeod spoke about struggling schools in the state’s rural areas and criticized Republicans for choosing not to expand Medicaid in the state. She also criticized McMaster for withdrawing the state from federal unemployment benefit programs.
Similar to other governors, McMaster last month withdrew the state from the added federal pay bump starting June 30 as South Carolina struggles to fill more than 80,000 jobs.
“The governor is turning away federal unemployment dollars that folks desperately need, proving once again that he’s only concerned about one problem, and that’s getting himself reelected,” McLeod said.
Ousting an incumbent and winning the statewide slot will be an uphill battle for Democrats.
A South Carolina Democrat has not won statewide since 2006, when Jim Rex was elected state superintendent of education, and the last Democrat to become governor was Jim Hodges more than 20 years ago.
Last November, Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison raised more than $130 million that helped him flood the airwaves with advertising. But he lost to Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-Seneca, by 10 percentage points.
Despite his loss, McLeod said Harrison helped build a campaign infrastructure for the Democratic Party to make the party successful.
Though she acknowledged it could take time for Democrats to win statewide.
“We are going to take this fight to the people and we’re going to where they are,” McLeod said Thursday. “I started this campaign in my hometown county for a reason because it’s a microcosm of the neglect and the desertion. We’ve been forgotten, and those folks in my hometown community and others like it won’t be forgotten in this campaign.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Democrat SC Sen. Mia McLeod launches 2022 campaign for governor."
