Two-thirds of election races in Horry County are unopposed. Why aren’t there more choices?
When voters open their ballots from the mail, or on Nov. 5 at the polls, they will notice that they do not have many choices to make for local offices in Horry County.
Monday marked the last day to register to vote in South Carolina for the Nov. 5 general election.
In addition to choosing who will become the next president of the United States, voters across the country will have to decide who will hold positions of power in local offices in their communities.
Out of the 11 races on the Horry County ballot, two have options for more than one candidate. The other nine races are all unopposed.
Merriam-Webster defines “unopposed” as “having no opponent,” and cites the example of a politician running for office as the way to use “unopposed” in a sentence.
According to a sample ballot provided by the South Carolina Election Commission, these candidates are running unopposed this November in Horry County:
- State House of Representatives, District 107, Case Brittain (Republican)
- Sheriff, Phillip E Thompson (Republican)
- Clerk of Court, Renee N Elvis (Republican)
- Coroner, Robert L Edge Jr (Republican)
- Auditor, Tina Hardee (Republican)
- County Treasurer, Angie Jones (Republican)
- County Council, District 4, Gary Loftus (Republican)
- Soil and Water District Commission, Shane Willoughby (Nonpartisan)
- Board of Education District, District 4, Wendy G Hodges (Republican)
University of South Carolina political science professor, Robert Olendick said over the past five or six election cycles, increasing political polarization could be a factor in local uncontested races, such as the ones in Horry County this year.
As a result, primary races become very important despite the lack of voter turnout during primary elections.
“We get lower turnout in local elections then we do in statewide elections, and certainly than in a national election, and it’s just kind of ironic, as I tell my students, that the that the level of government that is closest to the people, being that it probably has more direct impact on your life’s day to day, is the one where we get less interest and less participation,” he said. “So it’s one of those little ironies of democracy that we talk about.”
Coastal Carolina University’s Director of American Studies and associate professorDrew Kurlowski said that lack of contested races occurs in approximately half of all local elections across the United States.
“There is a real democratic danger to this,” he said on Monday. “Without competition, democracies don’t function, because now you have no process for accountability, you have no pressure to be responsible to your constituents.”
Repeated requests for comment from the South Carolina Democratic Party and the Horry County Democratic Party went unanswered as of early Monday afternoon.
Eight out of the nine candidates listed are running as part of the Republican Party.
Chairman for the Horry County Republican Party, Reese Boyd, said each part of the election cycle is important. In the case of Case Brittain’s unopposed race for South Carolina’s House of Representatives, Boyd said it’s indicative that constituents are satisfied with the work he’s done thus far.
“I think the whole process is important in general,” he said in response to a question that asked if primary races are more important now given the fact that there are so many uncontested races this year. “But when you have a situation like you have in South Carolina, or a county, where the Republican Party is very strong, then obviously the Republican Party is a very important part of it.”
According to election results in 2022, 2020 and 2018 from the state’s Election Commission, the margin of Republican candidates that have won in major elections in Horry County has increased each cycle.
During the 2022 race for Governor, Henry McMaster received 69.36% of Horry County votes compared to his democratic challenger, Joe Cunningham, who received 29.79% of Horry County votes, state election results showed.
Two years prior to that, in the last presidential race in 2020, state election results show that the races between Republicans and Democrats was much closer in Horry County.
In those races, former President Donald Trump won 55.11% of the Horry County votes compared to now President Joe Biden, who won 43.43%.
Those percentages were similar to the race for U.S. Senate in 2020. Results from the state show that Senator Lindsey Graham, who ran on the Republican ticket, received 54.44% of votes in Horry County compared to his Democratic challenger, Jaime Harrison, who walked away with 44.17% of votes.
Results for the 2018 general election in Horry County show a closer margin for Republican Governor Henry McMaster, who received 53.96% of the votes that year, while the Democrat challenger, James Smith received 45.92% of the votes.
According to data collected by Ballotpedia, this is a national trend that’s happening in communities across the United States.
For 2024, out of the 617 elections Ballotpedia covered in South Carolina, 330 were uncontested, or 53 percent.
