Analysis: What does Bethune’s victory in Myrtle Beach mean for Trump-style politics?
After it was clear Tuesday night that Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune had won a second term, she said she was pleasantly surprised: She had expected the race to be closer, and that she’d have to face a runoff election.
“I really was expecting a run-off, especially with five people running, that’s just a lot of votes to split up,” she told reporters. “So I’m very pleased that there won’t be a runoff and just very, very grateful.”
That nervousness was shared at least in part by her campaign as she ran for reelection, and Bethune viewed some of her challengers as potentially legitimate threats.
Ultimately, Bethune won reelection with 56% of the city’s vote, even with four others in the race. Her two most significant challengers, the photographer Gene Ho and the businessman Bill McClure, split about 39% of the vote evenly between themselves, though Ho won two more votes than McClure. The other two challengers, former police officer Tammie Durrant and former firefighter C.D. Rozsa, won 3% and 1% of the vote, respectively.
So what does it mean that Bethune was able to beat back four challengers to be reelected? And more specifically, what does it mean that Bethune handed Ho, who made his ties to former President Donald Trump a key component of his campaign, a sound defeat?
In part, said Bethune’s campaign manager Walter Whetsell, it means that the Trump-style politics employed by Ho don’t play in local elections.
“I think there is a message there, that nationalizing a local message with a Trump component didn’t work, it was a real failure,” Whetsell said. “There are definitely lessons to be learned and to be applied whether it’s this race or elsewhere.”
Ho announced he was running for mayor of Myrtle Beach nearly a year ago and heavily promoted his ties to Trump and others in the former president’s orbit throughout the race. Ho frequently posted photos on his social media account showing him meeting and spending time with various figures in Trump’s orbit, including Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, attorneys who worked on Trump’s behalf to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election; former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn who was ousted from the Trump administration early in his tenure but who’s remained relevant in pro-Trump circles; Juanita Broaddrick, who accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual assault and who played a role in Trump’s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton; George Papadopoulos, a former advisor to Trump’s campaign who pled guilty to lying to the FBI in 2017; Charlie Kirk, who runs the right-wing media organization Turning Point USA; MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who’s tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election; and Trump himself.
Ho also emphasized during his race that he worked as a campaign photographer for Trump, and had written a book about the experience, “TRUMPography.”
Ho also fashioned his campaign in a similar way Trump did, by running as an opponent to a so-called “deep state” that didn’t have residents’ best interests at heart.
“The politics in Myrtle Beach is heavily entrenched. It’s tied in with politicians who are hand picked by special interests. And the media? Again... explain how so-called independent news sources all report the same thing? Nearly verbatim. As though an intended narrative were being crafted and propagandized,” Ho wrote in an Oct. 31 Facebook post ahead of the election, after several stories detailing his ties to the QAnon conspiracy theory were published in local media outlets, including in The Sun News.
Also like Trump, Ho didn’t shy away from the controversial and fringe elements of conservative politics, namely the QAnon conspiracy, which claims a cabal of powerful elites and Democrats were involved in trafficking children and that Trump was waging a secret war to stop them. No evidence has emerged to date that any aspect of the conspiracy theory is true.
Prior to his run for mayor, Ho made several appearances on podcasts and at rallies where he endorsed some of the darkest tenets of the conspiracy. At a Washington D.C. rally on Sept. 11, 2019, for example, Ho claimed that elites in America were harvesting blood.
“We know they’ve been misusing blood with the adrenochrome and all this stuff,” Ho told a crowd of QAnon supporters.
And during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ho downplayed the seriousness of the virus and later warned people against receiving the vaccine. He joined the “Health and Freedom” tour, which promoted such ideas, as well as alternative treatments for COVID-19. Medical experts and doctors have denounced several of the treatments promoted in conservative political circles.
In terms of local policies, Ho ran as a candidate who would put an emphasis on policing and work to rid the city of unhoused individuals, drug dealers and criminals. He was also pitched by some as a candidate who would oppose the interests of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, which has significant sway in the city.
In some ways, Ho seemed to be a formidable challenge to Bethune. On Facebook, some Myrtle Beach residents rejected Bethune and her tenure, and said Ho’s brand of politics and policy were exactly what the Grand Strand city needed.
Ho even attracted the support of the local blogger David Hucks, who told The Sun News Ho’s campaign paid him $4,000. Hucks would ultimately write a number of posts supporting Ho and attacking Bethune. One such post, published ahead of the election, was titled, ”Every Local Knows and Loves Gene Ho.” Following Ho’s loss, Hucks painted Bethune’s victory as a win for the chamber of commerce.
But Ho’s political stylings and policies failed to take hold with voters. On Tuesday, some voters said his stance on public safety issues resonated with them, and that they wanted a mayor who would take a hardline approach to the issues. Others, though, said his affiliation with the Trump-orbit and QAnon disqualified him in their minds.
“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...I just felt that someone that closely associated with that camp wasn’t what I was looking for,” said Allen Barbee, who voted in the Market Commons area.
In a brief phone call with The Sun News on Wednesday, Ho declined to comment on his loss or his campaign.
Ho, though, posted on Facebook to thank his volunteers and concede the race.
“We wanted change. And we didn’t get it. But that is OK. People make their choices and I have NEVER worried about being in the minority. It actually gives me strength. Congratulations to all the winners this week,” he wrote.
By Whetsell’s estimation, Ho earned support, but not votes, due to a split between the style and substance of Trump’s politics. Republicans in South Carolina and nationwide, he said, are working to hold fast to Trump’s ideas and policies, even if some candidates and elected officials reject Trump’s brash style. Embracing Trump’s style over his substance, Whetsell said, proved to be a losing formula for Ho.
“Ho tried to tap into this group of people who believe in Trump substantively but also stylistically,” he said. “(But) that small fringe group doesn’t have the oomph, the jack to be really impactful.”
Still, Whetsell said, Bethune and her campaign took the prospect of challengers like Ho seriously. Whetsell frequently employs a political style minted by former South Carolina Senator Strom Thrumond, he said, in which candidates take all opponents extremely seriously.
“I think our style is from the Strom Thurmond days where he said, ‘There’s only two ways to run a campaign, unopposed or scared,’ and I think that’s how we ran the Bethune campaign,” Whetsell said. “She took everyone seriously.”
Taking Ho seriously meant Bethune and her campaign were paying for mail and television ads, as well as knocking on doors and speaking at events and to local reporters.
More broadly, Whetsell said, Ho’s loss could be good news for the Republican Party, which is currently working out ways to support the policies Trump did, but not necessarily his style. Ho’s loss, he said, “bodes well for the party.”
Whetsell also said Ho’s loss could be good news for Rep. Tom Rice (R-Myrtle Beach) who’s currently facing a crowded field of challengers as he seeks reelection next year. Rice has promoted the fact he voted with Trump 94% of the time when he was in office, even though he broke with the former president earlier this year when he voted to impeach him over his role in inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Whetsell cautioned that a local race in a small city wasn’t a “bellwether” for politics nationally, but suggested that Rice’s tactics could pay off.
“I think it was a clear indicator that Tom is in a safe space,” he said.
As for Bethune, she declined to address her victory over Ho specifically, but said she was proud of the campaign she ran.
“I won’t address that so much but I will say that I ran a very clean, honest campaign with integrity,” she said. “That’s who I am and that’s who I’m going to continue to be and I think people saw through that.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a quote from Ho’s Facebook page.
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 10:35 AM.
