Mark Burns, Sheri Biggs will head to runoff in GOP primary for Jeff Duncan's Upstate seat (2024)

GREENVILLE — The race for South Carolina’s most conservative U.S. House district is headed to a runoff.

Mark Burns,a leading face of the Christian nationalist movement,and Sheri Biggs, a nurse and lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, battled for the lead in the first round of voting in the June 11 Republican primary for the Upstate's 3rd Congressional District.

Because neither garnered more than 50 percent of the vote, the pair are heading to a runoff where Upstate voters will be asked to come out again June 25.

The Associated Press called the race at 9:15 p.m.

Burns earned 31 percent of the votes, while Biggs came away with 29 percent with about 75 percent of votes counted, according to the South Carolina Election Commission.

Burns emerged as a top contender despite raising relatively little in the race. Most observers pegged the two best-funded campaigns—Biggs and state Rep. Stewart Jones —to make it to the finale.

But in a rural Republican district where every vote counts, Burns had one of the most coveted endorsem*nts in Republican politics working in his favor: former President Donald Trump.

The runoff winner will go on to face Democratic primary winner Bryon Bestfrom Greenwoodin the general election Nov. 5.

Burns told The Post and Courier on June 11 that his team felt strong.

"I think that we the people have spoken pretty loud and clear, that they support the greatest president in our lifetime, President Donald Trump," Burns said. "They support his plan, and they want to see a true, strong MAGA Republican go and represent them in Washington, D.C., and support president Trump."

Since 2010, the sprawling 3rd Congressional District had been represented by Republican Jeff Duncan, a charismatic former state representative with one of the most conservative voting records in Congress.

But with Duncan's announcement in January that he would not seek reelection, a surprisingly diverse field of would-be successors lined up to take his place: three White men — like most of modern Congress — then two women, one Black man and a second-generation Cuban-American, all hailing from different industries and backgrounds.

Throughout the race, Biggshas largely branded herself as a political outsider. In addition to her military service, she is a family nurse practitioner and mental health nurse practitioner who describes herself as a "pro-life, pro-Second Amendment and Pro-Trump Republican." With no previous experience in elected office, she said she is on a mission to heal the United States.

"Our nation is in trouble. Biden’s border crisis, wasteful government spending, and inflation are harming all families," Biggs said in a statement June 11. "There are also attacks on our Christian values through the promotion of woke ideology. Additionally, the prioritization of illegal aliens over our veterans is unacceptable. This madness must stop."

"I stand here today because the people of the 3rd Congressional District are tired of the career politicians’ rhetoric," she added. "We want results. But we won’t get them if political opportunist and career candidate Mark Burns is the next Congressman. History shows that political opportunist Mark Burns is another career candidate whose rhetoric doesn’t match reality."

Sheri and her husband, Bill, are no strangers to the political world.

Both have a longstanding relationship with Gov. Henry McMaster, havingserved on his inaugural committeein 2022. And Bill Biggs, who owns Anderson-based HMR Veterans Services, has donated to a variety of political candidates over the years, including Duncan, Trump and U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, according to federal election records.

McMaster endorsed Biggs on April 24, lauding her faith and military service. And Biggs tapped several of Duncan’s former political aides for her campaign, including campaign consultant Lance Williams.

For her part, Biggs has brushed aside claims that she is cozy with establishment figures like McMaster and Duncan.

Biggs also had a large war chest to draw from. One-third of the total raised in the race — $250,000 — came directly from her pocketbook. She raised more cash than any other candidate, reporting $528,080 at the end of May.

Pastor Mark Burns, meanwhile, has loaned his campaign a half-million dollars but has substantially more than that in debt. Burns, originally from Belton, is currently in the process of opening a charter school that seeks to provide an “affordable, pro-American education” with a “strong emphasis on biblical teachings.”

He rallied would-be rioters ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, sacking of the United States Capitol building. He once suggested that parents and educators who pushed the LGBTQ “agenda” in public schools should be jailed for treason, or even executed, for doing so.

He also has the endorsem*nt of Trump, for whom Burns serves as an informal spiritual advisor.

The same day Trump was in court on allegations he’d paid for a former adult film star’s silence during the 2016 presidential election (and the same day someone self-immolated outside of the courtroom), Burns claimed the former president had called him for his counsel, where they spoke on the phone for nearly 25 minutes.

Burns' campaign signs feature the words “GOD FIRST” emblazoned beneath his name in bold, white lettering.

In appearances on the campaign trail, he has name-checked former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn, a leading figure on the religious right who has pushed disproven narratives about the veracity of the 2020 presidential election.

On the debate stage in Pickens, he urged attendees to stop being “weak, soft, sour Republicans” and “take this nation back” with policies that align with the Christian faith.

That message seems to resonate in the Third District, which is no easy place to campaign.

Spanning 10 counties and three television media markets, the region lacks any clear population center. And the towns that define the district — the bookish region around Clemson University, the manufacturing hubs of Laurens and Newberry, the deep-red rural areas around places like Belton and Pickens — have little in common.

The rural nature of the district, in a way, is also its great equalizer. Where high-dollar advertising buys can go a long way in more urban districts like SC-04 (dominated by Spartanburg and Greenville) or SC-01 (Charleston), political analysts say the Third District is won with shoe leather.

And while Jones was one of the few known entities in the race before Duncan’s exit, it was not enough to propel him to victory. He came in with 19.5 percent of the vote when the race was called.

Stewart first rose to statewide prominence in 2020 as a leader of a movement to lift restrictions on businesses and eliminate mask mandates mere months into the COVID-19 pandemic and, as a legislator, has championed policies to ban gender-affirming care for minors and tightening voter registration laws.

Other than Burns, he was the only candidate in the race to earn national television exposure and netted endorsem*nts ranging from icons of the Libertarian movement like Ron Paul and Thomas Massie to Upstate State Sen. Richard Cash, a kingmaker of Upstate Republican politics.

The votes will be certified later this week.

Early voting for the June 25 runoff will begin June 19. Voters do not need to have previously voted in the primary to vote in the runoff.