South Carolina Primary Election Results: Sanford Falls, Runoffs

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster was forced into a runoff election with Greenville businessman John Warren after he failed to win the 50 percent necessary to avoid it in Tuesday's Republican gubernatorial primary election. McMaster was the top vote getter in the election — a test of the hardline brand of conservatism and whether it survived a takeover of the GOP by Trump conservatives.

McMaster was an early supporter of Trump's and inherited the job when former governor Nikki Haley was appointed United Nations ambassador. The runoff election will be held June 26 to decide who will challenge longtime state Rep. James Smith in the Nov. 6 general election. Smith easily won his three-way race, and had led all gubernatorial candidates in fundraising, endorsements and name recognition.

U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, a Trump critic, was defeated in his 1st District congressional race by Katie Arrington, a state lawmaker who won with the 50 percent margin needed to avoid a runoff. Arrington had made a 2009 extramarital affair that ended Sanford's marriage a theme in one of her campaign ads. In one ad, Arrington appears dressed as a hiker and saying, “Mark Sanford and the career politicians cheated on us. Bless his heart — but it's time for Mark Sanford to take a hike — for real this time.”

The reference was to statements made by Sanford in 2009 that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but was discovered instead to be Argentina with a woman who wasn't his wife.

The 1st District race highlighting the current divide within the GOP. Trump tweeted his support for Arrington and brought up Sanford's affair hours before polls closed Tuesday.

"Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA," Trump tweeted. "He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina. I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!"

Sanford survived the scandal and remained South Carolina's governor until his term ended in January 2011. He successfully ran in a 2013 special election for a congressional seat he served in the 1990s and has been subsequently re-elected.

The Democratic and Republican nominees for the seat U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy is vacating will be decided in the June 26 runoff election. The wild primary saw 13 Republican candidates and five Democratic candidates. Gowdy, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in January that he wouldn't seek a fifth term — an announcement seen by many as evidence of the brain drain within Republican ranks.

The Republicans are Shannon Pierce, Claude Schmid, Lee Bright, John Marshall Mosser, Mark Burns, Dan Albert, Barry Bell, Stephen H. Brown, William Timmons, Dan Hamilton, Justin David Sanders, Josh Kimbrell and James Epley.

Two of them have direct ties to the president: Burns, a pastor who led prayers at some Trump rallies, and Epley, who was Trump’s campaign director in upstate South Carolina.

Democrats have a primary, too. Candidates are JT Davis, Eric Graben, Lee Turner, Will Morin, and Brandon P. Brown.

Come back to Patch for live election updates on key races:

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford remained as South Carolina governor until his term expired in January 2011.

Photo via Shutterstock