Failed threats of change? GOP challenge in SC House primary may not have done much

Before Tuesday’s elections, the state House Republican Caucus and Freedom Caucus, who have been clashing for the past two years, each said they were going to do whatever it took to defeat the other’s members.

Candidates and political insiders insist those threats were real, but did they succeed?

A week before Tuesday’s elections, RJ May, vice chair of the Freedom Caucus, said he was confident that his members would come back and stronger than before. He predicted membership would grow from 17 members to 25 members.

Freedom Caucus members won their challenges in about a dozen districts. May says his faction gained two seats as Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates won. Lee Gilreath beat incumbent House Assistant Majority Leader Jay West, R-Anderson, and Adam Duncan defeated Bill Sandifer, R-Oconee.

Neither Duncan or Gilreath responded to requests about their potential caucus affiliation from The State via phone.

Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates also won a race where a caucus members left his seats to run for Congress. May said Stephen Frank won caucus chair Adam Morgan’s district. Morgan and Stewart Jones each lost in their congressional primaries.

May called Tuesday night a win — and the biggest defeat of the “South Carolina establishment in history.”

“I think the voters of South Carolina want a more conservative government. They haven’t gotten that from the RINO establishment and their liberal allies,” May said. ” What they see in the Freedom Caucus are representatives who actually want to do the people’s work, who actually want to follow through with their campaign promises once in office.”

May said the House Republican caucus outspent his, but they made up for it with policy ideas and focusing on what their constituents wanted. He was surprised at how much time and money went into campaigning against the Freedom Caucus members.

Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates spent more than $562,000 on their campaigns through May 22, according to state ethics commission reports. But candidates aligned with the GOP caucus spent more than $1 million through May 22.

May said the results should send “shock waves” through the Republican party, and that they need to “get on board” with what the Freedom Caucus is pushing for.

Walt Whetsell, President of Starboard Communications, the communications strategy firm for the House GOP Caucus, said the premise that the Freedom Caucus had a “wonderful night” is just not reality based.

“They lost their chairman. Their chairman lost. Stewart Jones lost,” Whetsell said. “I think I would challenge the context of ‘they had a really good night.’ Did we have the good night we wanted? No, but nor did they. It’s going to be a draw at the end of the day almost.”

Outspoken members unchallenged

Threats targeted outspoken members of each faction, but House GOP members like Micah Caskey, R-Lexington, and Gil Gatch, R-Dorchester, and Freedom Caucus member Jordan Pace, R-Berkeley went unchallenged in Tuesday’s primaries

During the 2024 legislative session, both caucuses tried and failed to find candidates to oust the other faction.

Political insiders say a number of factors explain why this happened, but mainly, it’s difficult to get people to run.

For example, they said the Freedom Caucus had candidates to go up against both Caskey and Gatch. However, the candidates didn’t file due to personal matters or unforeseen circumstances.

Another reason could be the commitment. The job pays around $10,000 for six months, and the other six months is spent dealing with campaigning and constituent services.

And other people just aren’t ready or interested in jumping into a political atmosphere full of internal Republican fighting either.

“It is difficult to get rationale, reasonable people no matter their political philosophy, to make the sacrifice that it takes away from your family away from your business away from your job, to go run for office,” Whetsell said.

Will the numbers make a difference?

While Whetsell said he was surprised by the margin West lost, his seat had always been one of the biggest concerns for the Republican caucus. But he questions the value of the small Freedom Caucus gains in the legislative body.

“Look, I don’t think it means anything in terms of progress or lack of progress,” Whetsell said. “I mean, the house caucus has largely worked around them. I do think it means more of the ‘gotcha] votes, more of the, you know, chaos, more of the chicanery, more of the trickery, more of the kind of tactics that they pull, they will continue that.”

House Majority Leader, Davey Hiott, R-Pickens, echoed this message.

“Our numbers are gonna be about the same and still in the majority, and we’ll govern like we’re in the majority. We’ll lead the state of South Carolina,” Hiott said.

Hiott is mindful that the Freedom Caucus has “showed their hand,” and doesn’t expect them to be different. The people of South Carolina elected them and that’s how it works, he said.

“There’s 124 of us. These 124 people have different districts and we felt like there’s some good candidates out there, but the districts that they were working in decided to go with who they wanted to, and you know ... you have an election and the next morning and you can always be an armchair quarterback. But that’s the result, and that’s how plan going forward,” Hiott said.

Nearly $2 million spent, but not much has changed

Whetsell said enormous amounts of money was poured into the race, to essentially end up with both groups near where they are now. To Whetsell and others, however, the time and effort was necessary.

“Let’s say we didn’t take it seriously, they would have gotten to 28, and be impactful,” Whetsell said. “Let’s say they didn’t take it seriously, they would have went to four or five ... and would be, you know, inconsequential, right. So, I think there’s still a lot at stake, despite the fact that the numbers just didn’t move that much.”

May agreed because the Freedom Caucus beat back the threat and grew its numbers.

“There’s no way to spin those results except for a resounding victory for the Freedom Caucus,” May said. “I mean when you look at what they attempted to do and how badly the RINOS failed, there is only one conclusion from the results.”

The House GOP disagrees. The seats didn’t change all that much, and neither did points of view.

“They [Freedom Caucus] are disappointed today,” Whetsell said Wednesday. “They thought they were going to win 7-8 of these incumbent races.”