COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – Tuesday’s Republican runoff for the House seat Rep. Mick Mulvaney vacated to join the Trump administration has exposed a breach in the party that’s so wide, some GOP voters are threatening to stay home.
The two candidates are alike in many ways, but one is backed by business groups with mainstream appeal, while the other gets support from hard-right groups that reject compromise.
Despite the similarities between Tommy Pope – the top vote-getter on May 2 – and Ralph Norman, who trailed him by less than 1 percent in the first round, some GOP voters say they can’t fathom backing the other Republican, even against a Democrat, in the general election on June 20.
South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District spans 11 mostly rural counties where registered Republicans dominate after state GOP leaders changed the boundaries to draw it more safely under their party’s control.
It’s the same district held by the fictional Democratic politician Frank Underwood in the first season of “House of Cards” on Netflix, and had been in Democratic hands for more than 100 years until Mulvaney’s victory in 2010.