Mark Sanford, the 64-year-old former South Carolina governor and congressman whose career has been defined by personal scandal as much as fiscal conservatism, filed paperwork Monday to run for Congress in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District. The bid comes just months after his ex-fiancée's former partner publicly accused him of carrying on an affair with journalist Olivia Nuzzi.
Sanford told the Post & Courier he is entering the crowded GOP primary with a message centered on the national debt. He brings a $1.3 million war chest of unused funds from previous campaigns, and a personal history that would sink most candidates on contact.
The seat is open because Rep. Nancy Mace is vacating it to seek the Republican nomination for governor. The Cook Political Report rates the district, which stretches from Hilton Head Island north past Charleston along the coastline, as "solid" Republican. The June 9 GOP primary will effectively decide who goes to Washington.
For Sanford, the question isn't whether the district leans his way ideologically. It's whether Republican voters will tolerate another chapter of personal baggage from a man who has already tested their patience more than once.
Sanford's political career nearly ended in 2009 when, as sitting governor, he vanished for several days. His office told the public he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. He was actually in Argentina with his mistress. The lie became a national punchline and a shorthand for political dishonesty. He faced impeachment scrutiny and widespread calls to resign, as the Washington Times noted in its coverage of his latest filing.
He survived politically. He served out his term as governor, which ran through 2011. Then, in 2013, he won back his old House seat in a special election, a comeback that surprised Washington and proved that South Carolina's 1st District voters were willing to separate the man's personal failings from his fiscal record.
Sanford held the seat until 2018, when he lost a GOP primary to a Trump-backed challenger. He then launched a quixotic bid for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination, dropping out before the Iowa caucuses. His political career appeared finished.
Personal scandals have a way of reshaping congressional races in ways that polling alone cannot predict. In Texas, an affair scandal forced Rep. Tony Gonzales out of his own race and fundamentally altered the dynamics of that primary.
The fresh complication for Sanford surfaced last November, when Ryan Lizza, Nuzzi's ex-fiancé, publicly alleged that Sanford had carried on an affair with the journalist. Lizza claimed to have found three draft letters and alleged that Nuzzi had intended to leave them for Sanford, the New York Post reported.
Lizza wrote in a Substack post that Nuzzi admitted to becoming "infatuated" with Sanford after an interview and to sending him "risqué pictures and texts" on the campaign trail. Nuzzi insisted she "only had sex one time" with Sanford at his South Carolina home, Lizza wrote.
The Post obtained one of the three draft letters Lizza described. It was an incomplete handwritten note purportedly drafted on March 5, 2020.
Nuzzi's name had already been in the headlines for a separate matter, an alleged "sexting" relationship with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That controversy led to her departure from New York Magazine.
Sanford did not respond to the Post's request for comment and does not appear to have publicly addressed the Lizza allegation. That silence is itself a choice, and voters will decide whether it is a prudent one or an evasive one.
The pattern of scandal-plagued officeholders going quiet rather than confronting allegations head-on is not unique to Sanford. Other sitting members have drawn criticism for going silent on constituents while collecting a taxpayer-funded salary and hoping the news cycle moves on.
Whatever voters make of the personal allegations, Sanford is framing his campaign around a single issue: the national debt. In a statement, he cast the stakes in existential terms.
"Our nation's debt is the issue that will define whether this country survives in the form we've known it. It will also define how young and old fare over the years ahead, because inflation and interest rates, the value of the dollar, and our ability to afford all that goes with building and sustaining our lives will be driven by what happens next in confronting Washington's addiction to spending money we don't have on programs we can't afford."
He told the Post & Courier that "people have been telling me it's time to get off the bleachers." An email release on his candidacy said he felt 1st District voters wanted a representative "who is an advocate for financial sanity that has been lost in Washington for all too long," as Breitbart reported.
The fiscal argument is genuine. Sanford built his congressional career on spending fights and budget discipline. He was one of the few Republicans willing to challenge his own party on earmarks and entitlement reform. On the merits, his record on that issue is stronger than most of the candidates likely to share the primary ballot.
But fiscal conservatism has never been what made Sanford a national story. And a crowded GOP primary, in a district that is safely Republican regardless of the nominee, gives voters plenty of alternatives who carry less personal baggage.
Sanford's career arc raises a question that goes beyond one South Carolina district: How many second chances does a politician get before voters decide the pattern is the point?
He survived the 2009 Argentina scandal. He won back his seat in 2013. He lost it in 2018. He failed in a presidential bid. Now he is back again, with a new unaddressed allegation hanging over the campaign and $1.3 million in leftover funds to spend.
Republican primary voters in other states have shown they are willing to punish candidates whose personal conduct overshadows their ability to serve. In Texas' 23rd District, an affair scandal left the incumbent trailing his challenger by 24 points before the race was decided. South Carolina's 1st District voters will face a similar calculation.
The Lizza allegation remains just that, an allegation, made by an ex-fiancé in the middle of a messy public breakup. Lizza is not a disinterested party. Sanford has not confirmed or denied the claim. Nuzzi's own account, as relayed by Lizza, is partial and contested. Voters deserve to hear from Sanford directly before drawing conclusions.
But the silence is conspicuous. And the history is long.
Sanford served the 1st District across two separate stints, from 1995 to 2001, and again from 2013 to 2019. He governed the state from 2003 to 2011. He knows the district, and the district knows him. That familiarity cuts both ways.
The June 9 primary will test whether name recognition and a well-funded campaign treasury can overcome a political record that includes one confirmed affair, one unaddressed allegation, a failed presidential run, and a primary loss to a Trump-endorsed challenger. That is a lot of history for any candidate to carry into a competitive field.
Sanford's message on debt and spending is one the Republican Party badly needs to hear. Whether he is the right messenger is another question entirely.
At some point, a candidate's personal record stops being a footnote and starts being the text. Voters in South Carolina's 1st District will decide whether Mark Sanford passed that point a long time ago.
