Mark Sanford quits latest bid for Congress and says he'll set up a debt-focused nonprofit instead

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Mark Sanford, the Republican former South Carolina congressman and governor whose political ascendency was stalled by a 2009 affair, has ended his latest bid for public office, saying that he's quitting the race to reclaim his former coastal district to set up a nonprofit to address the national debt, his signature issue.

Sanford, 65, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was shuttering his campaign just a month after he launched it, a decision inspired by his desire to focus on combating the national debt and deficit.

“What I hope to do is to indeed build a grassroots organization — start small, but I have a fair size circle of friends and folks with whom I have some degree of influence and contacts,” Sanford told the AP, also noting that, with one grandchild on the way, he realized as he mounted this campaign that he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family.

The pivot comes after Sanford mounted a bid to reclaim his former seat in South Carolina's 1st District. He entered a primary on the last day of candidate filing, when the race already was chock full of other Republican candidates, many of whom had spent months laying the groundwork for their campaigns.

That territory was familiar to Sanford. An outsider with almost no name recognition when he launched his first congressional campaign for the 1994 contest, the real estate investor navigated a primary for the open seat, finishing second before winning the runoff. He served for six years before his outside run at governor, again pushing his way through a crowded primary, then knocking off the last Democrat to hold the office.

Sanford’s eight years as governor were overshadowed by the Appalachian Trail, which became shorthand for his disappearance to go to Argentina to see his lover. Sanford’s wife, family and staff didn’t know where he was.

Beating back both an impeachment inquiry and calls to resign, Sanford held fast, leaving office on his own terms. His wife at the time, Jenny Sanford, moved out of the governor’s mansion in Columbia, relocated with their four sons into the family’s beachfront home near Charleston and later sued him for divorce.

In a 2013 special election, Sanford won back his old congressional seat, beating 15 other candidates in a primary and runoff. He won two more full terms before falling in 2018 to a GOP challenger who had President Donald Trump’s backing.

A year after his primary loss, Sanford reemerged again, launching a long-shot primary challenge to Trump and offering his determination to bring fiscal restraint into the national conversation as a counterpoint to what he described as Trump’s incendiary rhetoric. Just ahead of the New Hampshire primary, Sanford dropped out of the contest.

In setting up the new organization, which he said would be centered in South Carolina, Sanford will be able to utilize the more than $1.3 million that had remained in his federal account since he left Congress in 2019. Depleting those resources, Sanford said, is a signal he’s moving away from running for office himself.

But is he done with politics forever? Maybe — and maybe not.

“Look, if there’s ever a guy who would say, ‘Never say never,’ it’s me,” Sanford said. “But I think, realistically, yeah, and it’s recognition of that being the case."

Sanford's decision was first reported by The Post and Courier of Charleston.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.