New OMB Director Mick Mulvaney’s old 5th District, which takes in populous suburbs of Charlotte and stretches south, is not prime territory for Democrats. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Democrat gets head start in deep-red special election to replace Mulvaney

The Republican primary for Mick Mulvaney’s old House seat will go another two weeks after the candidates forced a special-election runoff Tuesday night, giving Democrat Archie Parnell a head start in his long-shot bid to make a conservative stretch of South Carolina competitive.

Parnell, a former Goldman Sachs tax expert, cruised through the Democratic primary with about three-quarters of the vote while state Rep. Tommy Pope and former state legislator Ralph Norman advanced to a runoff on the GOP side, since no one got a majority of the vote. Pope had 31 percent and Norman 30 percent in the crowded field when the Associated Press called the runoff Tuesday night.


Pope and Norman’s runoff will be in two weeks, on May 16. The general election is June 20, the same day as a closely-watched special election to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in his old Georgia district.

Mulvaney’s old 5th District, which takes in populous suburbs of Charlotte and stretches south through rural areas to the outskirts of Columbia, is not prime territory for Democrats: President Donald Trump carried it with 57 percent of the vote in 2016 as Mulvaney, now the director of the Office of Management and Budget, also won easily. The district does not have a big urban center or recent history of supporting Democrats down-ballot since Mulvaney knocked longtime Democratic Rep. John Spratt out of Congress in 2010.

But Democrats note that any gap in voter enthusiasm could impact a deep-red district — as it did in Kansas in April, where a sleepy special election briefly troubled Republicans who worried their voters were not engaged. “The swing that happened in Kansas, if that happens here, we win,” Parnell said.

Parnell has a net worth in the millions, which he could use to pay for TV advertising in the special general election. In an interview before the election, Parnell didn’t deny he could put more of his own money into the contest.

Yet outgoing South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Matt Moore said that the party primary should engage Republicans in the district in a way they weren’t engaged in Kansas or Montana’s upcoming special election, where party leaders picked the candidates. “I will eat my shoes if a Democrat wins South Carolina’s 5th District,” Moore said.

Before someone can take on Parnell one-on-one, it’s possible that national Republican groups will turn their attention to the runoff between Pope — a former prosecutor-turned-state legislative leader who earned national press attention for prosecuting a woman for drowning her two children — and Norman, a real estate developer and legislative hardliner who became famous for being on the wrong side of 124-1 votes in the state House.

Norman has said he would gladly join the House Freedom Caucus, and could receive the backing of the conservative Club for Growth. Business-oriented groups are more likely to back Pope, who has already received a donation from the corporate PAC of Boeing, a major employer in South Carolina.