How COVID response, cash and a call for age limits pushed McMaster to a double-digit win

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster was favored to win a second term, in large part due to high name recognition, incumbency, a sizeable cash advantage and the mere fact that a Democrat hadn’t won statewide since 2006.

McMaster’s campaign just didn’t know by how much he’d win because he wasn’t viewed as highly favorable four years ago, when he was forced into a primary runoff.

On Tuesday, McMaster won by nearly 18 percentage points, 58% to Democrat Joe Cunningham’s nearly 41%.

In 2018, McMaster won by an 8-point margin.

McMaster’s campaign said it expected a double-digit win, but the margin was bigger than projected.

“I would say our polling up until Election Day was in the ballpark of this,” said Tim Pearson, McMaster’s general consultant. “I think what was a little surprising and rewarding was that the undecideds toward the end were mostly folks who traditionally would not be Republican voters, folks who call themselves moderate and wait until the end, they almost universally broke toward us.”

McMaster’s victory was buoyed by how he handled the state’s response to COVID-19, his campaign advisors say, which helped lead to an increased popularity in the state.

South Carolina also has low unemployment along with plans for billions of dollars in private investment and new jobs coming to the state. McMaster also had endorsements from Democratic law enforcement officials such as the sheriffs in Richland and Newberry counties.

Meanwhile, Cunningham, a former Lowcountry congressman, was hampered by a fundraising disadvantage, which kept him off the air longer when he needed to introduce himself to the state.

That, along with Cunningham’s call for an age limit for politicians, his push to legalize marijuana, sports betting and to protect abortion access, and a proposal to eliminate the state income tax, weren’t enough to oust the incumbent.

“It was a very good night for incumbents all across the country,” said Tyler Jones, Cunningham’s general consultant, as almost every incumbent governor and senator won reelection.

McMaster won 34 of the state’s 46 counties, improving upon his 2018 margins, including in Allendale and Jasper counties by 10 points over 2018 and more than 8 points in Bamberg, Clarendon, Marlboro and Hampton counties. He even picked up Calhoun County, a rural South Carolina county that voted for Democrat James Smith, a former lawmaker, in 2018.

Cunningham won only 12 counties.

“People never really stopped liking Henry, and now they really want him to be the governor,” Pearson said.

COVID, cash and the economy pushed McMaster to victory

McMaster’s advisors say the governor’s handling of the state’s COVID-19 response was the key to his reelection.

McMaster sought to have limited restrictions on the economy during the pandemic, as he briefly shut down close-contact businesses. He allowed the businesses to reopen quickly, even though at times the state had not met reopening guidelines from the White House. McMaster reluctantly had a home or work order, which lifted a few weeks later.

He resisted calls to issue a mask mandate while some cities required face covering themselves. And he fought against vaccine mandates from the federal government, which Democrats in the state, including his general election challenger, said could cost lives.

“The foundation for this reelection was probably laid in the early days of the pandemic when people saw their governor on television every day and came to trust him, see him and trust him, as someone who had facts to share with them at a scary time during a crisis that was scaring everyone very personally,” said senior advisor Rob Godfrey.

As COVID restrictions have disappeared, the state’s economy has boomed, in McMaster’s words. South Carolina has a low unemployment rate and his office regularly announces new investment coming into the state. Three weeks before Election Day, McMaster stood with BMW officials as they announced a $1.7 billion investment in the automaker’s Upstate facility to manufacture electric vehicles.

The governor was able to widen his message with his fundraising advantage, led by Marisa Crawford, campaign finance director, who helped raise $7.6 million.

Cunningham only raised $3.4 million, a shortfall exacerbated by the need to replenish his account for the general election because he nearly emptied his coffers to win a five-person primary back in June.

“We essentially had to start from scratch in July. That was a huge disadvantage for us,” Jones said. “There’s two ways to run, scared and unopposed. We subscribed to that, so we didn’t take any chances. We spent very heavily in the primary. I wish we didn’t have to do that, but we certainly weren’t taking any chances.”

McMaster’s money advantage allowed him to start advertising earlier.

Pearson said having McMaster go on TV several weeks before Cunningham with an attack ad calling Cunningham a “frat boy,” who wanted marijuana legalized and blew air horns in Congress, helped bring down Cunningham’s favorability in parts of the state other than Charleston.

“We had the opportunity to define him (Cunningham) to most of the voters and we did,” Pearson said. “We went up with an ad that when it was released was somewhat controversial. There were folks that thought mistakes were made, but the truth is we had a very specific goal in mind, which was to define him as both ideologically out of step with the state and as an unserious celebrity candidate.”

Pearson said they were surprised by the lack of attack ads from Cunningham, whose ads included criticism of the governor over his stance on reproductive rights, a position that he ultimately softened through the campaign.

“If they thought abortion was the way to attack Henry, they should have actually done it,” Pearson said.

Not only was McMaster on the air earlier, his messages were on the air more frequently.

“He was spending more heavily in the markets we were both in to the tune of 2- or 3-1,” Jones said. “There was an obvious spending gap.”

One space where Cunningham tried to counteract the broadcast and cable TV disparity was social media.

Cunningham used the social media video app TikTok and other sites to attract younger voters, releasing longer ads on abortion, marijuana and age limits for politicians.

But in South Carolina, voters ages 18 to 44 make up 39%, compared with 61% of registered voters who are 45 years old and older, according to State Election Commission statistics.

“The goal of this was to win an election. You have to put the information in front of the people who are actually going to vote,” Pearson said.

McMaster used Cunningham’s age limit criticism against him

Early in his campaign, Cunningham made some unconventional moves in a state that hadn’t elected a Democrat statewide since 2006 and a Democratic governor since 1998.

He called for age limits on politicians and legal marijuana and sports betting.

McMaster’s campaign said legalizing marijuana and sports betting were not on the top of voters’ minds, but Cunningham’s advisor Jones said there’s no way to know whether Cunningham had the wrong message.

“There’s no way to really know, but I don’t regret any of our messaging,” Jones said. “I think Joe had one of the most unique and bipartisan messages I’ve ever seen from a candidate. Anecdotally, we felt good about how people were responding to that message, but at the end of the day, people had a choice. Voters had a choice between their party or their freedom, and they chose their party.”

He added the Republicans voters who crossed over for Cunningham in his 2018 and 2020 congressional races didn’t materialize on a statewide level.

But it was Cunningham’s call for age limits in politics that some observers said may have been the ultimate mistake on the trail, alienating not only many voters but also notable members of the Democratic Party, such as Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott.

In September, Lott and 31 other county sheriff’s endorsed McMaster.

At that same stop, Lott criticized Cunningham’s proposal.

“It’s an insult to think in three years I’ll be too old to do this job,” the 69-year-old Lott said at the news conference. “It’s about caring (and) loving this state. That is a definition of a public servant. That is what our governor is, a true public servant.”

But it was the presence of another Democrat right before Election Day that raised eyebrows.

On Oct. 3, McMaster and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn stood in the governor’s office to promote efforts to expand broadband internet access.

A little more than three months before, the 82-year-old Clyburn, considered a Democratic kingmaker in South Carolina who is largely credited with boosting President Joe Biden to the White House, criticized Cunningham for pushing for age limits on politicians, saying the former congressman needed to “grow up.”

Walter Reed, Clyburn’s campaign manager and grandson, said Clyburn’s news conference wasn’t about endorsing the Republican incumbent, but showing how Clyburn will “do anything and everything to move this state forward regardless of political party.”

When asked who Clyburn voted for governor, the congressman released a short statement through his campaign.

“I voted Democratic,” he said.