DeMint defeats Tenenbaum

Senator-elect Jim DeMint pumps his fist after winning Tuesday. With him is his wife Debbie. Staff/Bart Boatwright e-mail this story Related Photo gallery • Election Day stretches into night

DeMint's victory for the seat of retiring Democrat Ernest F. Hollings of Charleston opens the door to increased clout for the Upstate in Washington, adding another voice to plead its case for federal assistance to hasten a wide array of pending economic development and quality of life projects.

Scott Huffmon, a Winthrop University political science professor, said senators would declare they represent the entire state, but human nature can play favorites.

"You always have a first loyalty to your home region and if you can bring something back to your state when there's not an overwhelming argument for somewhere else, you're going to default to home," Huffmon said.

It was a blow to the beleaguered state Democratic Party whose leaders hoped to use a Tenenbaum victory as a springboard for rebuilding the power it has lost over the last two decades as South Carolina's GOP ascended to political dominance.

The state's fading textile industry took a political hit too, again being unable to get a protectionist candidate elected.

With 1,874 of 2,063 precincts reporting, DeMint had 746,075 votes, or 53 percent and Tenenbaum had 611,584 or 44 percent, according to unofficial returns from the state Election Commission. Four minor party candidates shared about 3 percent.

DeMint carried Greenville with more than six of every 10 votes. With all precincts reporting, DeMint had 95,124, or 63.2 percent and Tenenbaum had 51,831, or 34.4 percent.

Bruce Ransom, a Clemson University political scientist, said Tenenbaum faced too many hurdles.

In a solidly Republican state in a presidential year, "she was obviously dependent on large numbers of voters who would cast their ballots for Bush to turn around and switch to her. It wasn't going to happen," Ransom said.

DeMint, 53, is a Greenville congressman, and Tenenbaum, also 53, is the state's education superintendent. She has two more years in her second term.

Tenenbaum called DeMint to concede just before 11 p.m. Moments later, with the presidential race still up in the air, DeMint echoed President Bush, telling jubilant Republicans at a downtown Columbia hotel, "Mission accomplished."

DeMint quipped, "If you add 23 percent to her total, you get my total tonight," a reference to her contention that he supported a 23 percent national sales tax.

"It's amazing what a regular, low-voltage guy can do with the help of some good friends and family. Thank you all so much," DeMint said.

Later, he told The Greenville News, "Running on ideas is a little more controversial, but people like to hear" how change can be brought about.

Reflecting Upstate political muscle, House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, and Graham, stood just behind DeMint.

Tenenbaum, again in a trademark red suit, told her supporters, "I hate to lose; losing hurts, but my parents taught me not to wallow in defeat and I'm not going to start tonight. Though this campaign ends tonight, my commitment to the people of South Carolina continues."

She urged those who voted for her to wish DeMint well "for the good of our state."

Republican Gov. Mark Sanford said that while Tenenbaum ran a good campaign, in the end, the strength of the state's conservatism and President Bush's popularity were too much to overcome.

DeMint swept the Upstate, winning Greenville, Anderson, Pickens and Oconee, plus Laurens, Union, Newberry and York.

Tenenbaum's strength was in the less populous Pee Dee and the state's small, black-majority counties, although she carried Richland with 60 percent.

The election may have answered the question of whether the Lowcountry and Grand Strand would throw their weight against a second Upstate senator. They didn't.

DeMint lost Charleston by fewer than 1,100 votes out of 117,778 cast and carried Berkeley, Dorchester, Georgetown and Horry.

Tenenbaum campaigned as a "South Carolina independent" and kept the national party and ticket at arm's length. She advocated protectionist policies aimed at preserving textile jobs while adopting several Republican planks, including support for the death penalty, gun ownership rights, and making permanent most of President Bush's tax cuts.

DeMint campaigned as a staunch ally of the Bush White House and a proponent of international trade and sweeping reforms from taxes to health care to Social Security.

Although trade was the campaign's early focal point, Tenenbaum latched onto a bill DeMint signed that would swap all federal taxes for a 23 percent sales tax. DeMint said he didn't support it and only signed to launch debate over tax reform and Tenenbaum made it the dominant issue of the campaign's final 10 weeks.

But voters didn't buy her image of DeMint as a free-spending, high-tax advocate.

DeMint's victory is a landmark election for Greenville and a further concentration of political power in the Upstate. He joins fellow Republican Lindsey Graham who hails from Seneca, just 40 miles to the west.

Greenville hasn't elected one of its own to the U.S. Senate since Democrat Joseph Haynsworth Earle in 1896. He served less than three months, dying in office in May 1897 at age 50.

During the more than a century, three other Greenville men served a year or less each, largely as caretakers, filling out the unexpired terms of incumbents who died or resigned.

The last Republican to hold the seat was John J. Patterson, a former Union army officer who moved to South Carolina during Reconstruction and won election to the Senate in 1872.

DeMint's victory is part of the post-war transition from small towns and a rural economy to urban-suburban centers built around heavy industry and information technology.

Shifting political power is rooted in population growth, both natural and from in-migration, combined with the Republican Party's organization and ability to get out the vote in Greenville.

"It's not just Greenville County alone, it's the Congressional Districts up there, the I-85 corridor from North Carolina to Georgia," Walter Edgar, University of South Carolina historian, said in a recent interview.

It was the most expensive Senate campaign in state history.

DeMint raised $7.65 million and Tenenbaum $5.27 million through Oct. 15, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Much of that money went for television advertising. Independent groups and party committees spent another $6 million to $8 million.

(Tim Smith of the Capital Bureau contributed to this report.)

Dan Hoover covers politics and can be reached at 298-4883.