Politics & Government

Gender and Geography Will Decide Colbert Busch-Sanford Race

To take SC1 Elizabeth Colbert Busch needs the right voters, Mark Sanford needs more of them.

The race that has received media attention worthy of a presidential primary comes to an end Monday.

From the time Mark Sanford and Elizabeth Colbert Busch announced their candidacies for the First Congressional District seat they were the favorites in their respective primaries.

Colbert Busch’s road to the Democratic nomination was smooth. She won more than 90 percent of the vote and was able to raise money and work on her public speaking skills while also crafting policy positions. If she loses, critics will say her team was too slow in getting her in front of large numbers of voters and making clear those policy positions.

Find out what's happening in Columbiawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

While Colbert Busch was easing into life as a political candidate, Sanford was slugging it out with 15 Republicans. He emerged relatively unscathed, although he did take a few occasionally humorous shots.

If he loses, critics will say he should not have run at all. SC1 has been one of the most reliably Republican seats in the entire country and the only way it was put in jeopardy is because of Sanford's presence on the ballot. Those same critics will point to a poll last week that showed Larry Grooms would have beat Colbert Busch with relative ease. But Grooms couldn’t even make it out of the primary.

Find out what's happening in Columbiawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

To continue the point, had Sanford not run, it’s possible—though not certain—that Colbert Busch would not have run at all. Which means the seat would have stayed Republican anyway. 

 

A Very Special Election

The eyes of the political class have been on the SC1 race for weeks. Yes, it’s because of the fascinating story lines. But the politicos are also interested in how the race might be a precursor for the mid-term elections in 2014.

In short, the race will have little to no effect on next year’s election. Sanford by himself made the race unique. Add the older sister of a famous comedian and it makes for an election that is special in every sense of the word. It doesn't hurt that the latest polls show it to be effectively a dead heat.

If the race will have little to no impact nationally, then it’s possible the inverse could be true and a national trend could have an effect on the results on Tuesday.

By the Republicans own admission, one of the reasons Barack Obama was re-elected last November was because of the Democrats’ significant edge in technology and how the data gleaned from that technology helped turnout.

That technological edge is being brought to bear by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) on Colbert Busch’s behalf.

One Democratic source told Patch that approximately 90,000 voters have been touched. By itself, that would be an impressive number. More impressive is that those voters were targeted specifically thanks to the Democrats advantage in data-gathering.

Which is not to say that Republicans haven’t reached out to dozens of thousands of voters, too. They have. But if you think of getting to 50 percent of the electorate as filling a glass of water, the Republicans are trying to fill it with a fire hose, while the Democrats are using the kitchen faucet.

 

What to Watch For and Where to Watch For It

The reason why the Democrats data advantage is so important is because without it, Colbert Busch would have almost no chance at victory.

Colbert Busch needs two groups to turn out in strong numbers to get the win—moderate women and African Americans.

Women make up a solid majority of voters in the district. Broadly speaking, the more women who vote, the more likely a Colbert Busch win becomes. In a poll released on Friday, she led by four percentage points among females.

But where will those women come from?

Colbert Busch won’t be picky, but specific areas to watch will be precincts in Sullivan’s Island (Sanford’s backyard), Folly Beach and James Island in Charleston County.

The other places to watch female turnout are in Hilton Head and Beaufort. Beaufort County went to Sanford’s opponent Curtis Bostic in the run-off. Beaufort’s mayor Billy Keyserling endorsed Colbert Busch and she has spent a considerable amount of time there.

If women do turn out to vote for Colbert Busch they need to leave their husbands and boyfriends home for the Democrat to win. Because the advantage Colbert Busch has with women is actually less than the one Sanford has with men. In Friday’s poll, men preferred Sanford by five percentage points.

The bulk of SC1’s African-American voters are in Charleston. The closer turnout gets to 30 percent in the city of Charleston the better it is for Colbert Busch.

For Sanford, he will look to dominate is Berkeley and Dorchester Counties. Combined, the two counties make up slightly more than 40 percent of the vote in SC1—or about three percent more than Charleston alone. But Sanford is so far ahead in those areas that they could be enough to carry him back to the office he held from 1995-2001. The magic number for Sanford is 15 percent. If he wins Berkeley and Dorchester by that amount, it could be too much for Colbert Busch. Sanford staffers told Patch over the weekend they were very confident they would get to that figure.

What else to watch? The sky. Bad weather equals low turnout. The conventional wisdom says lower turnout helps Sanford since the district skews so strongly Republican. The Tuesday forecast calls for cooler-than-normal temperatures with a 50 percent chance of rain.

Keep up with all of Patch's coverage of South Carolina politics by following us on Facebook HERE and Twitter HERE.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Columbia