It’s Election Day in Horry County. Here are the races near Myrtle Beach energizing voters
Municipal elections aren’t always flashy, but in Myrtle Beach, a race for mayor has turned into a competition between a Trump-world photographer and the incumbent, running on her record of the past four years.
“I voted against [Gene] Ho. I’m not into the Q stuff,” Allen Barbee, 74, said outside the city recreation center in the Market Commons area. “I know there was an article that came out recently but that wasn’t persuasion because I had already found out ahead of time where the candidates were.”
Ho, a longtime professional photographer who started his political career by working as a photographer for former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, has made waves as he’s run for mayor, largely due to his ties to Trump and his past support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, which included allegations that American elites and officials in the Democratic party are part of a secret cabal involved in child sex trafficking and torturing children.
“He was on the Trump train. I’m not an anti-Trumper but I’m trying to vote based on politics and issues and a lot of the issues I saw and...I just felt that someone that closely associated with that camp wasn’t what I was looking for,” Barbee, 74 said.
Ho is challenging current Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune, who was first elected in 2017. Other challengers against Bethune include Tammie Durant, a former police officer, Bill McClure, a retired businessman and C.D. Rozsa, a former firefighter.
Voters on Tuesday said they were happy with the job Bethune had done and were willing to give her another four years in office.
“She does a good job we feel, she seems to be on it with everything that’s going on in Myrtle Beach, with everything that’s going on with the crime,” said Gus Guedes. “We’re impressed with her.”
Barb Perian also voted for Bethune and said she liked what Myrtle Beach city leaders had planned for redeveloping the downtown area.
“I like the whole downtown redevelopment, I think it’s awesome, I love it, I love what they’re doing down there,” she said. “It’s perfect. There’s a lot of negativity on it but I think it’s the way to go, it’s great. And they’re moving ahead on that so that’s a good thing.”
Voters like Perian said they were concerned about crime and homeless individuals in Myrtle Beach, but felt that Bethune had good plans for tackling those issues. If Bethune wins a second term as mayor, some said they’d like to see her do more to control development.
“I wish they would control the construction a little bit only because there’s so much of it and do we have a plan?” Perian said. “I don’t want to stop people from moving here but I think we need to get a plan of what we’re doing with it. It seems just willy-nilly and not a plan about it.”
At a Market Commons polling location, a line of roughly two dozen stretched out the front door of the Base Recreation Center consistently throughout the morning.
Voters also took the polls in North Myrtle Beach, Conway, Loris, Aynor and Surfside Beach.
In North Myrtle Beach, Mayor Marilyn Hatley is facing a challenger in Wayne Troutman, and three city council seats are open. William (Bill) Davis and Trey Skidmore III are vying for an at-large seat while Clarence (Bubba) Olin Collins, Jr. Norfleet Jones and battling for a seat in the Ocean Drive community. Council member Nikki Fontana is facing off against Jolene Puffer for a seat in the Windy Hill area.
In Surfside Beach, seven candidates a vying for three at-large city council seats.
Conway elections
In Conway, voters said they found the municipal elections to be pretty easy. All six voters interviewed at Whittemore Park Middle School and the Horry County Library said they were in and out in five minutes or less.
“It was very easy, and I liked it because there wasn’t a lot of people. There were no lines or anything like that,” Minister Alberta Bellamy said, noting that other elections, like presidential ones, are typically much more busy.
Chip Moore, who voted at Whittemore Park Middle School, said he never misses an election.
“It’s always important to vote,” Moore said. “I vote every time I can.”
The only elections on the ballot in Conway are three at-large city council seats.
Six people are running for those three seats, including incumbents William Goldfinch and Shane Hubbard. The four new candidates are Beth Helms, a commercial real estate appraiser for Horry County Government; Julie Hardwick, a real estate agent with Century 21 McAlpine Associates and a former Horry County Schools teacher; Amanda Butler, a Horry County Schools special education teacher; and Autry Benton, who works for his family-owned business Benton Concrete and Utilities.
All four of the new candidates are political newcomers and the city council will get at least one new member, regardless of the outcome of the election.
Voting at the Horry County Library branch in Conway, Clairette Mathis said she liked the options for the candidates on the ballot and appreciated the number of options available to choose from. None of the voters interviewed chose to share who they voted for.
“It was easy … simple,” Mathis said.
Malcolm White, however, said he’d had a hard time figuring out who to vote for. He said he couldn’t find much information online about the candidates and actually missed voting in the last election because of how complicated it was to register to vote compared to Colorado, where he moved from about a year ago.
“I’ll have to wing it when I get in there,” White said.
This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 2:38 PM.
