‘He made a mistake.’ Horry conservatives split on Trump endorsing Fry for Congress
“I stand with Trump, but not this time.”
That was the message that circulated quickly on Tuesday among Horry County conservatives after former President Donald Trump announced he would back South Carolina state Rep. Russell Fry, from Surfside Beach, in his bid for congress.
Trump voters here haven’t yet coalesced around a candidate in the SC-7 Republican primary race, but many agree on two things: incumbent Rep. Tom Rice should be replaced for voting to impeach Trump last year, and Fry is too politically similar to Rice to be a suitable replacement.
“It bothers everyone to know that their champion in Donald Trump endorsed the same person, just in different khakis,” said Horry County conservative activist Chad Caton. “And that hurts people who live, die and breath this stuff.”
Caton and other conservatives are so incensed by Trump’s choice, he said, that he met with Trump’s advisers at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida in an effort to convince Trump to back someone else. Caton said he was at Mar-a-Lago to attend a fundraiser for Washington congressional candidate Joe Kent and used the opportunity to meet with Trump’s advisers, though he wouldn’t say which ones. He posted a photo from his visit of himself with Donald Trump Jr. on his Facebook page.
“I spoke to Trump’s inner circle, and I explained that President Trump was given false information (about) the endorsement,” Caton said. “I actually told his senior adviser that Russell Fry is Tom Rice’s political son.”
For Trump and his supporters, the race is a big deal. The incumbent Rice was one of 10 Republicans who joined Democrats a year ago to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Rice has repeatedly made a distinction between supporting Trump’s policies — which he says he does — and supporting the man himself.
But for Trump supporters in the Pee Dee and Grand Strand regions, Rice’s impeachment vote is viewed as a betrayal of their party’s leader. Conservatives across the seventh congressional district and South Carolina voted last year to censure Rice for his impeachment vote.
That put a spotlight on Rice’s Republican primary race this year. Trump, in November, called for “good and smart” candidates to oust Rice and other Republicans who voted to impeach him, and more than a dozen people have said they’re running against Rice. Several, including Fry, have emerged as serious contenders.
But now the race is a big deal for another reason: Trump’s base will need to unite around one challenger to Rice if they want to unseat him, and Trump endorsing a candidate they don’t favor could spoil those chances, some fear.
Some prominent conservatives, including former SC-7 candidate and media personality Graham Allen, have already backed Fry because of Trump’s endorsement, drawing disappointment from local Republicans. And at a Wednesday press conference, state lawmakers from the congressional district, including South Carolina House Speaker Jay Lucas, announced they would support Fry, too.
But Horry County conservatives told The Sun News that Trump endorsing Fry doesn’t mean they’ll back him. Rather, Caton explained, it’s a stark example of “elite” Republicans having better access to figures like Trump than average voters.
“This isn’t about Trump making a mistake, it’s about access,” Caton said. “How is Mr. Trump supposed to know? He’s only going to know what he’s told. This is the isolation of the president.”
Who likes Trump’s endorsement? Who doesn’t?
If anyone in Horry County is a Trump supporter, it’s Don Bowne. Bowne has an extensive collection of Trump memorabilia and started a “Red Hats for Trump” group that connects local Trump supporters and distributes red hats. He counts himself among the Trump supporters who will back Fry in the primary race because he won Trump’s blessing.
“Our phrase from day one has never changed: red hats will support anyone Donald Trump supports that Donald Trump supports back,” Bowne said.
He predicted that even if some conservatives are upset about Trump backing Fry, they’ll ultimately vote for Fry in the June 14 primary election.
“If you care about Tom Rice doing what he did then I can’t see where, when the time comes, they wouldn’t vote for Russell over a Democrat,” he said.
But not all Horry County Trump supporters feel that way.
“(Trump) is messing in local politics, and he shouldn’t because he doesn’t know much about local politics,” said Peggie Andrews Bushey, a local conservative who helps moderate the “Horry County Conservative Republicans” Facebook page. “We don’t have to vote for Russell Fry. We can get the base motivated for someone else.”
Shannon Grady, a conservative activist who helped organize the Horry County Republican Women’s Club, said she’s heard the same sentiment. She received multiple phone calls from friends and voters on Tuesday who were upset about Trump backing Fry, she said.
“A lot of the frustration I hear when people call me is this forces people into a box,” Grady said. “And people would have rather (Trump) waited and not weighed in at this point.”
Jerry Rovner, the head of the Republican Party for the seventh congressional district, predicted Trump would wait until at least April, after the filing period for candidates closed, before weighing in. Others predicted Trump wouldn’t endorse a candidate until closer to election day.
But that didn’t happen.
And rather than the endorsement clearing the field of challengers against Rice and Fry, several candidates in the race vowed to stay in, arguing that Trump’s base would ultimately side with them.
“He pissed his endorsement away,” candidate and Horry County Board of Education Chairman Ken Richardson said. “He made a mistake. It ain’t changed one thing with me, we’re moving along. We would have liked to have had it, but we never expected it. (Fry) is kind of the establishment guy, along with (Rice). I knew they weren’t going with me.”
Richardson argued that while candidates like Fry and Rice have the support of Republicans who live close to the coast, he enjoys the support of those who live in Western Horry County and in the rest of the district.
“From the Intracoastal Waterway to Chesterfield, I like my chances,” he said. “Let Russell and Tom Rice fight over Myrtle Beach.”
For Fry’s part, his campaign pushed back against conservatives who were upset with Trump’s choice.
“The only mistake here is for conservatives to divide themselves and hand Tom Rice another term,” Philip Habib, Fry’s campaign manager, said in a statement Wednesday. “President Trump recognized Russell Fry is the only candidate in this race with a proven history of fighting for conservatives.”
What happens if people don’t support Trump’s pick?
Some Horry County Republicans interviewed by The Sun News drew a comparison between Trump endorsing Fry and Trump’s endorsement in Tennessee’s fifth congressional district. There, Trump backed Morgan Ortagus — who previously worked as the spokeswoman for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — over Hollywood filmmaker and Trump-base favorite Robby Starbuck, drawing blowback from his supporters.
Caton, the activist, sees a similar dynamic beginning in Horry County. He argued that local conservatives believe Trump endorsed Fry not because he was the best candidate, but because Fry had powerful friends advocating for him in Trump’s inner circle. He said he made such an argument to Trump’s advisors at Mar-a-Lago.
“I know that I started a ball rolling here in Florida. I don’t know where that ball goes but it’s rolling,” he said. “Mr. Fry is not going to have an easy win based off an endorsement.”
Even some state lawmakers, colleagues of Fry, aren’t convinced by Trump’s endorsement.
“I’m definitely going to be looking at all the options, this does not seal the deal for me,” said state Rep. William Bailey, R-North Myrtle Beach.
For voters, he added, “it’s going to be a very divided choice. Some people will support him because he’s Trump and some will take a harder look at it.”
Bailey predicted that if the primary race has a crowded field in June still, Rice’s challengers will split the anti-Rice votes, and Rice could win another term.
For some, Richardson is seen as a more Trump-like choice. And in seeking Trump’s endorsement, Richardson made several appeals to the former president by claiming the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent and by appearing on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s radio show.
Jim Furry, a local Republican who ran for a leadership position in the county GOP last year, predicted Trump’s endorsement will make fundraising easier for Fry, and could make Richardson’s path forward more tenuous.
“I think lots of Richardson supporters were thinking he would get the endorsement,” he said. “It makes Richardson’s campaign a lot steeper. He will have to spend a lot more money sooner.”
Still, some Republicans in the seventh district remain unswayed by Trump’s endorsement, and still like Rice. Ed Carey, a former co-chair of the Horry County GOP, said he was “happy” Rice voted to impeach Trump, and said he thinks voters are “tired of all the Trump stuff.” He described both Trump and Fry as bad for the GOP.
“I think (Trump) is a parasite on society, and anyone who gets his endorsement is going to be doomed,” he said. “For someone who talked about draining the swamp, he just stepped in it.”
This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 6:58 AM.
