While most of the money, focus and excitement around here has been on John Ossoff and the GA-06 congressional special election on June 20th, there is another southern congressional special election going on that same day just a four hour drive east on I-85, in South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District. While South Carolina is often written off as a hopelessly red state, Mick Mulvaney and Frank Underwood’s former congressional district is now polling within 10%, as Democratic candidate Archie Parnell makes steady post-primary polling gains against Ralph Norman, his full-blown wingnut of an opponent.
As has been the case in every other special election so far, Democratic voters are much more excited and engaged than Republicans in SC-05, which can matter in a low turnout special election in the middle of the summer. And while Parnell can come off as a bit of a dork, he also has a sense of humor about it, and uses it to play up his wonky chops in his campaign ads. While Parnell is an unlikely candidate, he is actually fairly experienced in government, having served as a tax attorney for the Justice Department as well as on the Ways and Means Department when Democrats controlled Congress, in addition to working in the private sector.
Poaching this seat from the GOP would be a crazy Man Bites Dog sort of political moment, a Doolittle Raid deep in GOP territory, and would likely scare the crap out of GOP incumbents in closer districts, who can do the math and project the swing in their own districts. If we can come close in even redder districts in Kansas and Montana, we may well be able to win this, with enough help.
Please consider throwing some coin Archie’s way, or getting involved with canvassing or phonebanking if you’re in the area.