March 30 was a lonely day.

No one was calling Nathan Ballentine after he filed to run against Rick Quinn — the House majority leader, the 16-year-incumbent, the right-hand man of Speaker David Wilkins.

No one had much nice to say face to face either, even the members of Ballentine’s Rotary club, who wondered why a diehard Republican would take on the Republican leader of the House.

“People were cordial, but they kept saying, why are you going to do this?”

Election night was a different story.

Ballentine’s phone rang and buzzed. First, Quinn, to concede the race — Ballentine won by 118 votes, out of a total of 4,186 cast.

Then Speaker Wilkins, to whom Ballentine had never spoken, but had only passed in awe when he was a House page in college.

Then Mark Sanford, whom Ballentine met only at Sanford’s “Open Door After 4,” the first-come, first-served chance to spend five minutes with the governor.

Then Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer showed up at Ballentine’s house to congratulate him.

Ballentine’s phone kept ringing Wednesday. Karen Ballentine tugged her husband’s sleeve at one point, saying, it’s Mike Campbell.

“Shows how much I know,” Ballentine said. “I’m like, ‘Who’s Mike Campbell?’”• (He’s the son of former Gov. Carroll Campbell and a possible contender in the 2006 lieutenant governor’s race.)

Ballentine had pulled off what even he doubted he could — an upset of one of the most powerful men in the state. With no Democrat waiting in November, he is a lock to take office in January.

He is still in awe, and is not quite sure yet how he feels about joining those same powerful men in the State House. He was floored to even be recognized in Kinko’s on Wednesday.

“This guy said, ‘Are you off cloud nine yet?’ And I said, ‘It hasn’t sunk in.’”

Quinn is not just the Republican leader, but he also chairs the Ways and Means subcommittee responsible for Medicaid and health, more than a third of the state budget. Quinn is Wilkins’ lead strategist on the ground and the architect of a radical plan to change school funding.

Ballentine has no major quibble with Quinn on policy issues.

In some senses, they are brother against brother. Throughout District 71, Ballentine’s white-red-and-blue signs butt up against Quinn’s blue-red-and-white ones.

They live five miles apart. Ballentine is 33, a banker, married, with a stepdaughter and a 6-week-old son. Quinn is 39, a businessman, married with a 1-year-old daughter.

They both graduated from the University of South Carolina. They were in different fraternities but run in similar circles now.

Ballentine wrote on his Web site: “We’re both nice guys with roots in this community. ... The biggest difference is the way we approach the job.”

Ballentine’s slogan was “People, not politics.”

Hence, the importance of the phone.

In his ads, he promised to be a legislator who would return phone calls — a slam at Quinn, who was admittedly preoccupied with his leadership duties and his family’s political consulting business.

Quinn acknowledged his loss was his own, saying that in his zeal to fill his leadership roles, he didn’t spend as much time with his constituents or on his campaign as he would have liked.

Ballentine moved in to fill the void.

He walked the district — the section off I-26, past Harbison and the mall headed toward Lake Murray in northwestern Richland County. The district is bisected by the leisurely Kennerly Road, lined by new subdivisions on old farmland, flanked by a new Publix, a new YMCA.

Ballentine held his first campaign team meeting March 30 — that lonely night — when 10 people got together in his living room to talk strategy.

They had no slogan. They had no signs. They had no money. They moved quickly, raising money, listening to political consultant (and Quinn rival) Rod Shealy.

They met again in mid-April, joined by people in the area near Dutch Fork High School who had been impressed by the stranger knocking on their doors.

By Memorial Day, they had fliers upon fliers in more than 20,000 mailboxes in the district and were fast approaching Ballentine’s goal of 3,000 personal visits.

The Ballentines hosted a meet-and-greet at the Rusty Anchor restaurant on Lake Murray. Karen Ballentine, who works in marketing and event planning for the S.C. Lottery, planned enough food for 150 people.

“I brought Tupperware containers,” Karen Ballentine said. “I thought we’d have to bring food home.”

Instead, they ran out. The Ballentines had to run up to the corner store and buy 50 more chicken breasts, and rolls and potato salad.

That was the first time they allowed themselves to think they just might win.

Ballentine takes his place among a short but notable list of insurgents who have bumped incumbents out in Irmo — starting with Quinn himself, who unseated incumbent Alva Humphries in 1988.

That was followed in 1996 by Andre Bauer, who ousted House Rep. David Wright, an eight-year incumbent.

To avoid the same fate, Ballentine plans to hold to his roots.

He vows to remember the thought he had the day he got a mailing from Quinn — one of 22 that came to his house — many with pictures of Sanford, or Wilkins, or Attorney General Henry McMaster.

“I had to say, OK, the politicians are backing him, but the people are backing you.”

Reach Bauerlein at (803) 771-8485 or vbauerlein@thestate.com