GOP runoff grows more likely in 4th District

e-mail this story Dan Hoover • GOP gleeful at possible Dem strife (08/16/03) • GOP runoff grows more likely in 4th District (08/02/03) • Erwin pins rebound hopes on primary (07/26/03) • Tenenbaum jump-starts '06 election (05/24/03) • Andre Bauer makes a move (05/04/03)

The Republican Party's 4th Congressional District campaign will change materially this week when former state legislator Carole Wells announces her candidacy.

First, Wells is from Spartanburg, the district's second most populous county. Greenville contenders will have to work against that demographic, no longer being able to carve up Spartanburg like it was Poland in 1939.

Second, her presence on the ballot increases the likelihood of a runoff primary.

Also, it could force former incumbent Bob Inglis to spend all of the $500,000 he has budgeted just to win the nomination for his old job.

Phil Bradley, the third candidate, like Inglis, would have to work to offset the polarization by county.

Inglis and Bradley hail from Greenville.

With an open seat and the June 8 primary still 10 months away, others may join the field.

Spartanburg's Barry Wynn, a former state GOP chairman and a top Inglis supporter, said Wells' candidacy "might make it a runoff situation."

Looking like '98

With three-term incumbent Jim DeMint leaving for the uncharted waters of a U.S. Senate run, the 2004 primary is beginning to take on some of the appearance of 1998 when Inglis left, also for a Senate bid.

Five Republicans, four of whom were from Greenville, sought the nomination.

Jim Ritchie, a state legislator from Spartanburg, got more than twice as many votes in his home county as the three major candidates from Greenville — DeMint, state Sen. Mike Fair, and hospital executive Howell Clyborne. He carried it, plus Union and the district's Laurens precincts.

It was good enough for a fourth-place finish, at 19.5 percent, illustrating how Greenville dominates the 4th even when its votes are split by a multi-candidate field.

Greenville's strong

Greenville voters accounted for 61.9 percent of the 39,845 ballots cast, Spartanburg 35.7 percent. The rest came from Union County and a tiny portion of Laurens.

The disparity was greater in the runoff: Greenville 64.2 percent, Spartanburg 34.6.

In the runoff, Fair led DeMint by 472 votes out of 22,364 cast in Greenville, but lost Spartanburg by

2,390 out of 12,054.

Ritchie, now in the state Senate, said the lesson from that campaign was that "a Spartanburg candidate has to do extraordinarily well in Greenville."

The numbers also show that Spartanburg can have a greater impact when Greenville's votes are divided. They also show how unlikely it is for a Spartanburg candidate to win.

That's why some Spartanburg Republicans backed a failed effort during 2001's reapportionment debate to move the county into the 5th District, where it would have been the biggest county.

Dan Hoover can be reached at (864) 298-4883.