Candidates make final push only days until Election Day
CHARLESTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – With only four days left until the big day, candidates are getting their final messages out and showing voters why they should be elected come Tuesday night.
“I’m encouraging everybody to get out and take advantage of this opportunity,” Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Cunningham said. “This is democracy. This is how we allow our voices to be heard, by voting.”
Political leaders are pushing for people to get out and vote in the midterms.
“There’s no reason not to vote this election,” Republican 1st Congressional District Representative Nancy Mace said. “This election is the most important election of our lifetime.”
Although Representative Nancy Mace and Democratic challenger, Dr. Annie Andrews, are opponents vying for the 1st Congressional District seat, they both agree on the importance of voters participating in this election cycle.
“Every election,” Dr. Andrews said, “we say, ‘This is the most important election of our lifetime,’ but I truly believe that this is. With what happened this summer with Roe falling, we have to restore women’s reproductive freedom, and with what happened on January 6, we have to protect our democracy.”
A democracy that Cunningham believes has been in decline under South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster.
“It’s our duty to pass along the freedoms that we have to that next generation,” Cunningham said, “not allow them to slip through the fingers of our own hands. And again, voting career politicians out of office, those people who have failed us, and putting in new leadership.”
However, McMaster feels his leadership is moving the state in a positive direction.
“I think the future is so bright for our state,” McMaster said, “so bright for our people, that we will be able to serve, as Ronald Reagan used to say, ‘That shining light on a hill.’”
And in the race for state superintendent of education, Democratic candidate Lisa Ellis and Republican candidate Ellen Weaver are trying to position themselves to be South Carolina’s next top educator.
“There are things that,” Ellis said, “as superintendent of education, I can do and to relieve some of those hoops that teachers have to jump through by looking at what is in the best interest of students.”
“Talking about the problems is not the same thing as solving them,” Weaver said. “You have to actually be able to work with the General Assembly, with the governor, with superintendents and parents and educators around the state in order to actually get anything done.”
Experts say more than 51,000 voters have already cast their vote in Charleston County, and they expect that number to grow to more than 60,000 when early voting ends Saturday.
