Incumbent Republican South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford, a frequent
Trump critic who the president lambasted earlier in the day as "nothing
but trouble" and "very unhelpful," was ousted in Tuesday night's primary
by state Rep. Katie Arrington.
On a key primary night with elections also held in
Maine, Virginia, Nevada and North Dakota, the results in South Carolina
were an unmistakably positive referendum on President Trump's tenure.
Arrington's shock win was also a dramatic rebuke of
Sanford's heated "Never Trump"-style rhetoric and scandal-pocked career.
It signaled that the president's base in the state remains solidly
behind him ahead of November's midterm elections, despite withering
criticism from both inside and outside the Republican party.
State Rep. Katie Arrington, a relative political
newcomer who secured Trump's backing, repeatedly bashed Sanford for
deriding the president and even ran advertisements featuring video clips
of Sanford's Trump criticisms.
ALSO ON TUESDAY: PRO-TRUMP FIREBRAND WINS IN VIRGINIA SENATE PRIMARY
Mark Sanford, a frequent Trump critic, went head-to-head
in Tuesday's South Carolina primary with Trump backer Katie Arrington, a
relative political newcomer.
(Sanford state portrait, Arrington campaign photo)
Earlier Tuesday, as the ballots were being counted,
Sanford acknowledged in an interview that his criticisms of Trump had
hurt him in the primary.
“Well I think it has probably hurt me in this race," he
said. "But again, there are no free lunches in life. I think there are
times I have had to oppose the president because of stands I have had
for a long time."
The coastal 1st Congressional District is
Republican-leaning, but contains sizable liberal pockets such as
Charleston County, which went for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Sanford has warned
that Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs will be "disastrous," called
the president intolerant and untrustworthy, and even appeared to blame
him for the shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice
last year.
"I would argue that the president has unleashed — it's
partially, again, not in any way totally — but partially to blame for
demons that have been unleashed," Sanford said, after gunfire from a
disaffected progressive loner nearly took the life of Majority Whip
Steve Scalise, R-La.
Even before Trump took office, Sanford said
the billionaire businessman should “just shut up” and “quit responding”
to anyone critical of him on a personal or professional level.
Sanford resigned as governor in 2011 after finally
acknowledging that he was having an extramarital affair. In June 2009,
he disappeared from public view for six days and later claimed that he
had been hiking on the Appalachian Trail.
He later admitted that he had in fact traveled to Argentina to meet a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair.
But he staged a political comeback in 2013, winning the House seat in the district he had earlier represented for six years.
As voters headed to the polls Tuesday, Trump reminded them of Sanford's rhetoric, as well as the affair.
TRUMP MOCKS 'VERY UNHELPFUL' SANFORD, SAYS HE'S 'BETTER OFF IN ARGENTINA'
"I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a
state I love," tweeted Trump, who was traveling aboard Air Force One on
the way back from his historic one-on-one meeting with North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un. "She is tough on crime and will continue our fight
to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!"
By contrast, Trump said that Sanford "has been very
unhelpful to me in my campaign to [Make America Great Again]. He is MIA
and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina."
Other key races in NV, VA, and SC
Voters in Virginia also handed a big win Tuesday to
pro-Trump Senate candidate Corey Stewart, the firebrand who has vowed to
wage a "vicious" and "ruthless" fight against incumbent Sen. Tim
Kaine.
Stewart said he plans to campaign like Trump and appeal to blue collar voters.
Corey Stewart, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate and
Chairman of Prince William County Board, addresses his supporters at the
Electric Palm restaurant on election night
(Washington Post via AP)
Chants of "lock her up" rang out at Stewart's victory speech Tuesday night.
TRUMP-BACKED CANDIDATE WINS IN NEVADA GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY
Also in Virginia, voters decided that state Sen.
Jennifer Wexton will take on vulnerable Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock
in November in the northern Virginia congressional district. Wexton,
who won a six-way primary, routed her well-funded competition in a race
called early in the evening.
Comstock fought off a challenge from Shak Hill, who
attacked the two-term incumbent as insufficiently conservative and weak
in her support of President Donald Trump.
Barbara Comstock is one of the GOP's more vulnerable
representatives in Congress; she will face state Sen. Jennifer Wexton in
November.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Comstock's district is considered a prime target for Democrats as they hope to retake the House in November.
Voters in Virginia also decided that former CIA officer
Abigail Spanberger will face hard-right conservative Representative
Dave Brat in November. Hillary Clinton carried Comstock's district by
nearly ten points in 2016, and Trump's win in Brat's district was
relatively narrow.
Meanwhile, Archie Parnell has won the Democratic
nomination in a South Carolina congressional district despite
revelations from a divorce filing last month that he beat his wife more
than 40 years ago.Parnell's win sets up a rematch with U.S. Rep. Ralph
Norman. Parnell lost by just 3 percentage points in a special election
last year.
In Nevada, Trump-backed candidate Danny Tarkanian, the
son of legendary UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, defeated Scott
Hammond and television reporter Michelle Mortensen.
Tarkanian, a businessman, had been running in the primary against GOP Sen. Dean Heller, when Trump reached out and asked him to switch races so that Heller could run without intra-party opposition.
Elsewhere in Nevada, Sharron Angle, the conservative
who once ominously threatened to "take out" then-Sen. Harry Reid, lost
her race against Rep. Mark Amodei.