757,215 459,583 Start date November 4, 2014 | 61.1% 37.1% | |
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Winner Tim Scott | ||
The 2014 United States Senate special election in South Carolina took place on November 4, 2014, concurrently with the 6-year South Carolina Senate seat election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
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The seat was formerly held by Republican Jim DeMint, who resigned on January 1, 2013. Nikki Haley, the Governor of South Carolina, announced the appointment of U.S. Representative Tim Scott to fill the seat. Scott ran in the special election and won by beating Democratic councilwoman Joyce Dickerson in the November general election. This was only the second Senate election since the Seventeenth Amendment (after Illinois in 2004) in which both major party nominees were African American, the third being the 2016 Senate election in which Scott also ran.
Background
Incumbent Jim DeMint announced on December 6, 2012 that he would resign the Senate seat effective January 1, 2013, to become the president of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Nikki Haley, the Governor of South Carolina, appointed a replacement to fill the seat until the special election. Haley indicated that she would not appoint a "placeholder" to the seat, but would appoint someone who would stand in a 2014 special election to serve the remaining two years of DeMint's term.
Potential replacements
According to sources close to Governor Haley, as of December 11, 2012, she had narrowed the list of potential appointees down to five: U.S. Representatives Tim Scott and Trey Gowdy, former South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, former First Lady of South Carolina Jenny Sanford, and Catherine Templeton, who heads the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. Other politicians mentioned as possible replacements for DeMint included U.S. Representative Mick Mulvaney, South Carolina Representative Nathan Ballentine, former U.S. Representative Gresham Barrett, U.S. Representative Joe Wilson, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, former Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, former South Carolina Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson, and Haley's deputy chief of staff Tedd Pitts. Comedian Stephen Colbert, a South Carolina native, expressed interest in being appointed the seat, asking his fans to tweet Haley that she should appoint him. Chad Walldorf, the owner of the Sticky Fingers restaurant chain, had also been mentioned as a potential placeholder.
A Public Policy Polling poll released on December 10, 2012, which asked respondents who they wanted to replace DeMint, showed Colbert with the highest total. Colbert had support at 20 percent, followed by Scott at 15 percent, Gowdy at 14 percent, and Sanford at 11 percent. Haley said that she would not appoint Colbert to the seat.
On December 17 2012, Haley announced that she would appoint Scott to DeMint's seat following his resignation.