South Carolina Republican Mark Sanford is ending his run for his former congressional seat just one month after launching his comeback bid.
Sanford—dubbed “Love Guv” after admitting to an extramarital affair while serving as South Carolina’s governor in 2009—confirmed he is no longer attempting to win back the seat soon to be vacated by Rep. Nancy Mace.
Instead, Sanford is stepping away from electoral politics entirely and will launch a nonprofit focused on the nation’s growing debt and deficit, The Post and Courier reported.
“What has hit me over the last month is how the debt and deficit spending issue that I care dearly about will be a change that comes to Washington, rather than from Washington,” Sanford said.
Sanford declared his candidacy in the crowded GOP primary for South Carolina’s 1st congressional district on March 30, the final day for candidate filing.
The bid was Sanford’s latest comeback attempt in a political career spanning more than three decades. He was first elected to the 1st District in 1994, serving in the House before launching a successful South Carolina gubernatorial bid in 2002.
Sanford was once seen as a potential Republican contender for the 2012 presidential election, but that prospect collapsed after he admitted to an affair with Argentine woman Maria Belén Chapur.
Before the affair was revealed, the Republican disappeared from public view for nearly a week, telling staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. In reality, Sanford had traveled to South America to meet Chapur.
He refused to resign as governor over the scandal and served out the remainder of his second term, though he did step down as chair of the Republican Governors Association.
In 2013, Sanford staged a comeback by winning a special election to return to South Carolina’s 1st District, where he served for five years before losing a GOP primary in 2018.
In 2019—years after being floated as a possible future president—Sanford launched a long-shot bid in the 2020 Republican presidential primary against incumbent Donald Trump.
A vocal Trump critic, Sanford dropped out of the GOP primary race in November 2019 after gaining little traction, with some polls showing him at just 1 percent support.
Speaking to The Post and Courier after suspending his latest campaign, the 66-year-old suggested this could be his final attempt to return to statewide or national politics.
“If there’s ever anybody that would say ‘never say never,’ I guess it’d be me given the different iterations I’ve had over the years,” he said.
“But I think, fairly definitively, between my station in life, this chapter of life, and the fact that I want to try in earnest a different approach, that’s the case.”
