Statehouse Candidate Filing Week 1: Incumbents Draw Conservative Challengers as Freedom Caucus Faces Limited Pushback
The first week of candidate filing across South Carolina closed with little drama, but several State House incumbents are already facing credible conservative primary challengers. The filing deadline is noon on March 30 ahead of the June 9 Republican primaries.
Statehouse Showdown
With several statewide offices being vacated and the conservative House Freedom Caucus looking to continue to add to their ranks, SC Confidential will provide ongoing updates on candidate filings through the noon deadline on March 30, 2026.
GOP Leaders Continue to Play Games in Closed Primary Debate
At the turn of this year, Columbia lawmakers received the most pressure yet over finally closing partisan primaries. After two decades of proposed legislation, the state house constitutional laws subcommittee held a hearing on H.3643 and H.3310.
Per usual, legislation that the Republican establishment has no appetite to pass is scheduled at the end of the hearing and/or under tremendous time restraints due to the representatives needing to get to the house floor for proceedings.
You see, an important part of holding together the uniparty statehouse coalition together is having moderates and leftists vote in Republican primaries in our Republican supermajority state.