Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is considering challenging President Trump in GOP primaries next year.
Sanford, speaking to The Post and Courier in Charleston, confirmed he will take the next month to formulate whether he will mount a potential run against Trump as a way of pushing a national debate about America’s mounting debt, deficit and government spending.
“Sometimes in life you’ve got to say what you’ve got to say, whether there’s an audience or not for that message,” Sanford said. “I feel convicted.”
If he does get in the race, Sanford faces mammoth odds of getting any traction within the Republican Party.
Polls show Trump with over 90% support among registered Republicans.
Sanford’s announcement comes as Trump faces renewed fire, even from some Republicans, over racist comments directed at four Democratic congresswomen who are minorities.
[Jim Heath Book Excerpt: Covering Mark Sanford In South Carolina]
So far, only former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld has formally announced a challenge versus Trump.
University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, widely considered the dean of Southern political pundits, said Sanford’s potential long-shot endeavor could still make an impact.
Sabato said Sanford would come to the challenge with relatively high name identification both in South Carolina and nationwide.
“Is he a serious challenger to Trump? If you mean by serious challenger that he could beat Trump, the answer is no, but there are other ways to measure challenges,” Sabato said. “If he can make the argument against Trump, if he can really whatever remaining ‘Never Trumpers’ there are out there, then he could have an impact.”
Since leaving office in January, Sanford said he has been privately mulling whether to run for the nation’s highest office.
He described the internal debate as a drumbeat that never went away.
“I’m a Republican. I think the Republican Party has lost its way on debt, spending and financial matters,” he said.
Sanford conceded he had been waiting to see if any other high-profile Republicans, such as former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, would primary the president.
If he finds a presidential run is not viable, Sanford said he might pursue setting up a think tank aimed at addressing the deficit.
Sanford also said he has no interest in running for Charleston’s congressional seat, a post he held from 1995 to 2001, and again from 2013 until 2018.
In a late-afternoon tweet on the day of Sanford’s Republican primary, Trump asked state voters to replace Sanford with Katie Arrington, going so far as to say Sanford is “better off in Argentina,” a reference to his adulterous affair when he was governor in 2009.
The message was delivered less than three hours before the polls closed, illustrating Trump’s willingness to take out one of the few Republican congressmen who call out the president for his sometimes crude behavior.
During his concession speech in the 2018 midterm election, Sanford told his supporters, “I stand by every one of those decisions to disagree with the president.”
The feud between the two Republicans didn’t stop there.
A week after Sanford lost his GOP primary race, Trump reportedly made fun of the Charleston Republican in a closed-door meeting with House Republicans, where some members of Congress reportedly booed president for his comments.