Democrat for governor Cunningham brings his campaign back where it began, the Lowcountry
Behind the backdrop of a Port Royal sunset, an often-overlooked voting bloc of Beaufort County came together and came to life.
“Y’all are probably all out here for the same reason,” Democratic nominee for governor Joe Cunningham told the crowd. “Because you believe in what South Carolina can be — and what it should be.”
Cunningham’s Port Royal rally, held Friday evening on the waterfront patio of Shellring Ale Works, marked one of the final stops of his statewide “Countdown to Freedom” tour before Election Day on Nov. 8.
Formerly a representative of South Carolina’s 1st Congressional district, Cunningham is running to unseat Republican incumbent Gov. Henry McMaster, who is vying for his second full term in the governor’s office.
Cunningham’s platform is a hybrid of conservative and progressive ideals. If elected, he wants to legalize marijuana and sports betting, taking those industries’ funds and, in his own words, “give it to our teachers and fix our damn roads.” He wants to eliminate the state income tax so South Carolina’s economy can thrive. In stark contrast to McMaster, Cunningham opposes abortion bans and supports expanded background checks for firearm sales.
Joining Cunningham were Trav Robertson, chair of the Democratic Party of South Carolina; Rep. Michael Rivers, the Democratic representative in State House District 121 running for reelection and Tally Casey, Cunningham’s lieutenant governor running mate.
Rivers introduced Casey as a “real-life superhero.” She was an attorney, an Iraq combat tour veteran and the first female fighter pilot in the state. Now, she fights for abortion rights, a touchstone of Cunningham’s campaign.
“If you can trust me to defend this country, to drop bombs, to take out surface-to-air missiles with a $30 million aircraft, my goodness, shouldn’t you trust me to make decisions about my own body?” Casey asked the Port Royal, sparking massive applause.
‘Out of the past and into the future’
This year’s race for governor is a clash between old and new, Cunningham says. During the nominees’ first and only debate Oct. 26, Cunningham repeatedly portrayed McMaster as an outdated, out-of-touch politician, slamming the governor’s opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.
“It’s 2022 and Gov. McMaster wants to ban same-sex marriage,” Cunningham said at the debate. “Gov. McMaster has been leading South Carolina into the 1950s since the 1980s.”
And Cunningham never misses a chance to address the age gap between himself, 40, and the current 75-year-old governor. When McMaster assumed the seat following Nikki Haley’s resignation in 2017, he became the oldest sitting governor in the history of South Carolina. He’s currently the third-oldest governor in the country.
“[McMaster] has been a politician for literally longer than I’ve been alive,” Cunningham said. “Call me old fashioned, but I think if there’s something he wanted to get done for the state of South Carolina, he should’ve gotten it done in the last 40+ years.”
But Cunningham’s thoughts on age don’t just make for comical quips; the 40-year-old candidate wants to bring an end to the “geriatric oligarchy” in politics, he said. He suggested President Biden step aside to make room for a younger Democratic candidate in the 2024 presidential election, even going so far as to propose a 72-year-old age limit for all elected officials in South Carolina, similar to the state’s cutoff for judges in Magistrate Court.
‘Lowcountry over party’
Cunningham might be the Democratic candidate for governor, but you’ll rarely hear him speak in partisan terms.
He frequently touts his bipartisan success in Congress, evident in the Veterans Tele-hearing Modernization Act and Great American Outdoors Act, both of which he sponsored and passed in a highly divided Congress. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce awarded him with the Jefferson-Hamilton Award for Bipartisanship in 2021 following his exit from the House of Representatives.
“I don’t know about y’all, but I am so sick and tired of the extremists running politics and running government these days,” he told voters at the Port Royal rally. “We always put Lowcountry over party.”
But Cunningham’s unwavering commitment to bipartisanship has often led to friction with his own party. His past opposition to Medicare for All and lack of support for defunding the police clashed with opinions of progressive Democrats. Cunningham has stayed mostly silent about such issues for the bulk of his 2022 campaign, instead drawing voters’ attention to more hot-button issues within the Democratic Party, such as abortion and the legalization of marijuana.
Election day approaches
Throughout the rally, Cunningham repeatedly returned to his 2018 congressional campaign, speaking with pride of his “stunning” upset victory over Republican Katie Arrington.
He wants to replicate that win. And with a September poll positioning Cunningham “within striking distance” of McMaster, the race might be tighter than expected.
“We’re going to take the shock and surprise that happened in 2018, and we’re going to export that statewide, folks,” he told voters in the rally’s final moments. “I was proud to represent y’all [those] two years in Congress. I was proud of what we did together. But I’m even more proud of what the future holds.”
This story was originally published November 5, 2022 at 10:45 AM.
