MYRTLE BEACH — Tom Rice set up shop with a campaign headquarters in Myrtle Beach on Thursday, as the race for the newly formed District 7 Congressional seat enters the home stretch.

The office, at 1107 48th Avenue North, officially opened Thursday evening. Rice hopes it will be another way to reach out to voters in the last two months before the election.

“With 750,000 voters out there we’re going to try to reach as many of them as we can if not all of them,” he said. “It’s hard for two or three people to do that. It takes a team.”

The headquarters is just another way for voters to learn more about Rice.

“We want to pull people out let them know we’re working, let them see what we’re doing and let them know we care about them,” Rice said. “We’re going to need help. We can’t do this by ourselves. This is a big undertaking.”

With several rooms on the second floor in Suite 210, Rice’s campaign workers and volunteers are set up with maps, calendars and tools to help spread their candidate’s message.

And yes, there are bowls of Rice Krispy treats, with election stickers scattered about.

Cleo Steele is one of the volunteers. She’s only known Rice for a few months.

“I trust him, I believe in him, and he’s got the experience,” she said. “This is a golden opportunity for [people] to meet the candidate. I think after you talk with Tom you’re going to like him and I don’t think you’ll have to go any further.”

Though the race between Tom Rice and his Democratic counterpart Gloria Bromell-Tinubu is heating up, Rice said his campaign isn’t changing too much, with a continued focus on bringing jobs to the district.

“There are obviously a lot of issues out there but the No. 1 issue on people’s minds is jobs,” Rice said. “People are worried about themselves, their families their children and we’ve got to get this economy going and get jobs here. We’re focusing on that in Horry County … and we’re going to see continued job success here and we’re going to spread that throughout the district.”

It’s a message Rice said was heard throughout the Republican National Convention last week in Tampa, Fla.

“I thought it was great,” he said of the convention. “We need to return the country to fiscal responsibility. Right now we’re borrowing $900 a month from each of our children and grandchildren and that’s just abhorrent to me. We’ve got to get the economy going and we’ve got to get into a government system of taxation and regulation that’s business friendly.”

He said he hasn’t watched much of the Democratic National Convention, which entered its finale in Charlotte Thursday while he was opening his headquarters.

“I understand they’ve had some interesting moments… but I haven’t paid that much attention to the specifics of the convention,” he said.

Tinubu has a campaign office in Conway at 1421 3rd Avenue and is opening a new office in Florence Saturday at 1 p.m. The Florence office is at 420 W. Cheves Street.

Contact AMANDA KELLEY at 626-0381.