SC Sen. Vincent Sheheen loses reelection bid in stunning upset giving GOP more seats
South Carolina Sen. Vincent Sheheen, twice a candidate for governor, took on the Confederate flag, education reform and expansion of four-year-old kindergarten and led his rural Kershaw County district as a moderate Democrat for two decades.
On Tuesday night, the 16-year State Senate veteran Democrat lost his reelection bid to a relatively unknown challenger, losing by just 876 votes in a race where 43,687 people cast ballots.
In three previous Senate races dating back to 2008, Sheheen had run unopposed for the $10,400-a-year job.
“Thank you to all my friends who have called and sent texts, but PLEASE do not feel bad for me,” Sheheen tweeted by noon Wednesday, listing out a series of legislative priorities he worked on that included his efforts to pull down the Confederate flag after a mass shooting in June 2015 that claimed the life of nine Black churchgoers, including Sheheen’s seatmate Sen. Clementa Pinckney.
“So please, if you want to worry, worry about your state and community. But do not worry about me. Amy and I will be enjoying more sunsets together at the lake.”
In a normal year, Sheheen, 49, would not have been expected to lose. Known in the Senate as a progressive moderate, Sheheen had a reputation of a serious lawmaker who could work with Republicans and help broker compromises.
In his hometown of Camden and across Kershaw County, Sheheen had numerous multi-generational ties to the community. His uncle, Bob Sheheen, was a former Speaker of the S.C. House of Representatives. His late father, Fred Sheheen, was a former head of the S.C. Commission on Higher Education. His late uncle, Austin Sheheen, ran a prominent Camden accounting firm and was a leader in numerous community organizations.
Those ties didn’t matter Tuesday. Sheheen was a casualty of what friends and associates call a massive “red wave” of Republicans who turned out in droves on Tuesday to vote for President Trump and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC.
“The Sheheen family is very highly regarded over here in Camden. If you called 99 people out of 100, they would say they can’t believe that Vincent lost. He just does that well of a job,” said Johnny Deal, 59, a lifelong Camden resident and social media specialist. “Between Donald Trump’s coattails and the Republican Party over here really beating the drum ... that is what did it.”
Former Kershaw Sheriff Jim Matthews, who won two terms as a Republican from 2010-2018, said Sheheen was a casualty of this year’s politics. “A lot of Republicans in the past voted for Vincent, but I think this time, because of the presidential race, they said, ‘I’m not voting for any more Democrats.’ ”
“Vincent was a very nice guy, a popular guy,” Matthews said.
State Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, who served with Sheheen, said Sheheen “was running in a district that Trump won by 20 points in 2016. And to the extent that the (Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey) Graham versus (Democrat Jamie) Harrison race nationalized local elections, Vincent was in a very tough position and did the best he could. But it wasn’t enough.”
Sheheen will be missed, Harpootlian said. “In my two years there, he taught me a lot. But he was a casualty of the Red Wave.”
Former state Sen. Joel Lourie, a Democrat who represented Richland County in the Senate for 12 years, said Sheheen — his former deskmate in the Senate — was an exceptional lawmaker and they continued their friendship after Lourie left office in 2017.
“This election was about R versus D, and if you live in a Republican state, that’s not going to bode well for you,” Lourie said. “I’m fairly confident you had a record number of voters yesterday voting straight ticket. People were not voting against Vincent Sheheen because if you had based your vote on his contributions to the state, he would have won overwhelmingly.”
“We’re a country of two tribes, a red tribe and a blue tribe, and you saw that play out in Vincent’s race,” Lourie said.
Sheheen has a talent “for taking very complicated issues and breaking them down in a way that everyone could understand them,” Lourie said. Because of that ability, and a gift for foreseeing obstacles to getting laws passed, “when it came to putting deals together, he knew what the compromise would have to look like and what steps we had to take to get there.”
Lourie said, “The impact of his loss is not just his loss, but it’s an institutional loss — what it means to our state. There aren’t a lot of people who can work both sides of the aisle. He really and truly could.”
Vote counts will be certified Friday, but on Wednesday Sheheen’s Republican challenger, Penry Gustafson, led by about 2 percentage points, with 100% of precincts reporting.
Sheheen won Chesterfield and Kershaw counties by under 1 percentage point. But he lost Lancaster County by more than 25 points.
Sheheen’s loss to Gustafson, 50, is arguably one of the most stunning legislative upsets for Democrats this cycle. Sheheen, an attorney and former prosecutor for the city of Camden, served a total 20 years in the Legislature and sat on the Senate’s Finance and Education committees.
Gustafson, a self-described community advocate, owned a small business and worked in sales for a chemical company.
“The voters have spoken that they’re ready for a change in our district and I’m excited and humbled to serve them in the South Carolina Senate,” Gustafson said in a statement provided to The State. “I want to thank Sen. Sheheen for his years of service to our state and district.”
Sheheen’s loss also illustrates how his Senate District 27 and surrounding counties — Kershaw and Lancaster — have shifted away from Democrats. Both counties are rural and voted twice to elect Donald Trump president.
Election night also took down House Democratic Reps. Laurie Funderburk, of Kershaw County, and Mandy Powers Norrell, in Lancaster County. Powers Norrell ran for lieutenant governor on a joint ticket with then-Democratic gubernatorial nominee James Smith in 2018.
“I congratulate my opponent on her victory and thank her for a well-run campaign... I appreciate her for stepping into the arena, and I pledge to be there for anything she needs in this transition,” Norrell tweeted of her challenger, Sandy McGarry. “I am fine and happy. For a while, I’ve felt a nudge to get outside of my comfort zone and find new challenges. There are thousands of ways to serve and make a difference and I’m getting excited about discovering new ways to do that. Sometimes that nudge must become a push.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 12:42 PM with the headline "SC Sen. Vincent Sheheen loses reelection bid in stunning upset giving GOP more seats."
