Scandal-Scarred Republican Plots Return to Old Job

A former political heavyweight in South Carolina is itching for a return to the limelight after his fall from grace.

Mark Sanford, the state’s former Republican governor and two-time congressman, is planning a run for his old seat in the state’s first congressional district, according to the state’s election commission website.

Sanford’s former seat is currently held by Rep. Nancy Mace, who is preparing a run for governor. The race for the Palmetto State’s first district is already stacked with 15 candidates who have filed.

The conservative politician first represented South Carolina’s first congressional district from 1995 to 2001 before serving as the state’s governor from 2003 to 2011. In 2013, Sanford reclaimed his House seat and served for another six years, ending his tenure amid the tail end of the first Trump administration.

Throughout his second stint in Congress, Sanford frequently criticized President Donald Trump, calling out the president’s unbecoming behavior and lack of professionalism as commander in chief.

Following a devastating primary defeat to Republican Katie Arrington in 2018, after Trump, 79, had called him “very unhelpful” and “nothing but trouble,” Sanford launched a brief, unsuccessful bid to challenge Trump for president in the 2020 election.

Sanford explained his return to politics to The Post and Courier in a story published on Monday, saying that “people have been telling me it’s time to get off the bleachers.”

Sanford did not immediately return a request for comment.

The politician’s long career has seen its fair share of both success and scandal.

While serving as South Carolina’s governor in 2009, Sanford disappeared for several days, supposedly after hiking on the Appalachian Trail. A few days later, however, he admitted his absence was due to his having an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina named María Belén Chapur.

“I have been unfaithful to my wife,” he said at the time. “I developed a relationship with what started out as a dear, dear friend from Argentina.”

Though he declined to resign, he gave up his chairmanship of the Republican Governors Association and did not run for reelection as the state’s executive.

Sanford was also rumored to have had a relationship with Olivia Nuzzi, the 33-year-old former New York Magazine reporter who allegedly had a fling with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Nuzzi’s ex-fiancé and fellow journalist Ryan Lizza alleged in a November Substack post that Nuzzi had written a love letter to “a famous politician, 32 years older than Olivia, and well-known for a sex scandal.”