COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s sole Democrat in Congress Jim Clyburn easily fended off two Democratic challengers in his primary race Tuesday to secure his 16th term.
The Associated Press called the race at 8:15 p.m.
Clyburn, who will turn 82 in July, is likely headed to another two-year term in Congress after he beat two longshot Democratic challengers, Micheal Addison and Gregg Marcel Dixon, with more than 90 percentage points.
Clyburn will either face Republican challenger Duke Buckner, of Walterboro, or Sonia Morris, from Charleston, in November.
“I’ve always enjoyed campaigning, and I don’t see any reason why the voters should not vote with favor upon my candidacy,” Clyburn told The State days ahead of the primary. “I’ve always worked as hard as I possibly can to make what this country is all about as realistically as I possibly can for the folks who live in it. It’s been the foundation upon which I’ve built my service.”
First elected in 1992, Clyburn is currently the third-ranking Democrat in the U.S. House, representing the 6th District that now stretches from Columbia to parts of Charleston, Lake City and the state border near Savannah, Georgia.
Clyburn said with the nearly 100,000 different people in his district due to reapportionment, people still know him well.
“For the first time the entire peninsula of Charleston is in my district. You have to work very hard to find anybody on the Charleston Peninsula who is not familiar with me,” Clyburn said in an interview with The State. “I ran into a woman the other day who said, ‘I have been waiting 30 years to cast a vote for you.’”
Considered a “kingmaker” in South Carolina politics, Clyburn is largely credited with helping to send President Joe Biden to the White House after Clyburn endorsed the then-presidential candidate ahead of the state’s presidential primary after Biden failed to win in other early voting states.
At a campaign rally over the weekend, Clyburn listed infrastructure investments that he’s delivered to the district and the support he has given to the area, in and out of his congressional role, all of which he described as proof he is “walking the walk.”
In Congress, Clyburn has been a public advocate for expanding broadband access, and he chaired a panel dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I got a call from the Republican governor of South Carolina (Henry McMaster) and he said to me, ‘Because of what y’all have done, within three to five years, every house and every business in South Carolina is gonna have broadband,’” Clyburn said. “And I was walking around the Capitol (and) people started referring to me as ‘Jim Broadband.’ Why? I wasn’t just talk, I could walk.”
Clyburn’s two Democratic challengers told The State this won’t be their last election.
Addison, 65, is a chiropractor with a previous unsuccessful run for the South Carolina Senate. Addison said he is acquaintances with Clyburn and admires him, but said Clyburn is out of touch with local residents.
Dixon, 37, is a teacher and Jasper County resident. Dixon ran on a campaign to “repair Black America,” and said Clyburn has misled the district. Part of his campaign platform included a push for reparations for Black residents.
Despite the candidates recognizing Clyburn’s influential status, both said they were campaigning because of the district’s struggles with increasing poverty and home ownership.
In the week leading up to the election, both also said they plan to run again.
Clyburn doesn’t seem too worried.
“Now these opponents out there are just talking. They’ve never done a darn thing. They’re running a campaign talking about what I have not done — there’s a lot that I have not done. There’s much more that I have not done than what I have done. But what I have done is much, much more than any of them has ever done,” Clyburn told.
“I don’t waste time arguing with people on what I have not done. I’ve been married to that. There’s a lot I have not done. So I’m running for reelection on the record of what I have done,” Clyburn added.
Though Clyburn is favored to win his House race, back in Washington he faces the possible reality of his party losing control.
“Every prediction, I think they’re pretty accurate, is going to be that the Republicans are going to win the majority of the House in November, and so that would put him back in the position of a minority leader,” said Bob Oldendick, an emeritus professor at the University of South Carolina with a near 30-year career studying South Carolina politics. “So there’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of things that have to take place before, I think, Rep. Clyburn makes any firm decisions about what his future might be.”
____
