COASTAL OBSERVER

People who plan to run for office as a Republican in this year’s elections will need to prove to local party officials that they support the party’s principles.

If not, they may find themselves on the sidelines for events during the primary campaign this spring.

“It’s become more apparent that we need to do that,” said Karol Anderson, who chairs the Georgetown County GOP.

The local party’s executive committee adopted a resolution this month that “denounces attempts by any individual  to seek candidacy in a Republican primary without demonstrating a bona fide commitment to Republican principles.”

State party rules require that party officials beyond the precinct level show they have voted in three of the last two GOP primaries. The GOP has tried for a decade to apply that rule to candidates for office, Anderson said.

Bills pending in the legislature that would require voters to register by party would also make voting in two of the last three primaries a prerequisite for appearing on a party’s primary ballot. A non-binding ballot question in the 2024 GOP presidential primary found 73 percent of voters favored registration by party. 

“When I first got involved, there were a lot of Republicans who didn’t want registration by party,” Anderson said. “Things have changed over the last 25 years.”

Filing for local and state offices opens March 16 and runs through March 30.  The law on registration and candidacy won’t change this year, if at all, so the local GOP took action on its own.

Prior to the June primary, the party “reserves the right to determine whether a candidate shall be recognized, endorsed, supported or permitted to participate in Party-sponsored events based on a finding of sincere adherence to Republican principles, as determined by a majority vote of the Executive Committee,” according to the resolution.

Those who don’t meet the criteria won’t have access to party meetings, forums or resources. 

This year’s races include two of the three County Council districts that represent Waccamaw Neck, which have long been decided in the Republican primary. Both Council Member Clint Elliott in District 1 and Council Member Stella Mercado in District 6 have said they plan to run again, although Elliott is also seeking a seat on the state Public Service Commission.

Anderson said she hasn’t heard of any other candidates for those seats.

But the party’s resolution will apply to statewide races, too, she added. “It’s all of them.”

The county GOP Club this week heard from Mark Lynch, an Upstate businessman who is challenging Sen. Lindsay Graham in the primary. He cited Graham’s low ratings on legislative scorecards from the John Birch Society and the Club for Growth and has labeled him a RINO, Republican in name only.

“Just because somebody has an R by their name doesn’t mean they’re holding to Republican values,” Lynch said.

That prompted Bill Chaplin, the county GOP’s representative to the state executive committee, to ask Lynch about support for David Pascoe, the First Judicial Circuit solicitor, who has been elected as a Democrat since 2004 but is running as a Republican for attorney general.

“Trump was a Democrat,” said Lynch, who promised to back the president’s priorities if elected.

He told the GOP Club that Pascoe is a conservative who had to run as a Democrat to get elected in a circuit that includes Orangeburg County, which is solidly Democratic.

“I love how he talks. He talks my language,” Lynch said.

But he agreed that the state needs to adopt closed primaries. “We can never get along with all the RINOs in Columbia,” he said.

While Anderson said the GOP welcomes voters and candidates who switch parties, the local party wants to see more than “political opportunity rather than sincere ideological alignment,” according to its resolution.

It isn’t just Republicans, she added. “Both parties need to know who their people are.”