Rocky Mountain Low: McMaster Returns from Aspen to Flailing Campaign

Growing Primary and FBI Corruption Probe Hurt McMaster’s Re-Election Bid

It’s been a tough week for South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster. After spending two days in the lovely resort town of Aspen, the governor returned to find his re-election campaign in deep trouble.
New reports say that McMaster’s own lieutenant governor, Kevin Bryant, will announce a primary challenge against him this Friday.
It’s just the latest in a string of bad news for the governor’s dwindling chances for re-election. After failing to produce a substantive agenda, McMaster has quickly fallen out of favor with Republicans, and a set of well-funded GOP challengers, which now includes his own lieutenant governor, are lining up against him.
The Post and Courier: Growing problems for, and with, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster’s re-election bid
In January, a lot of people expected McMaster would be governor for 10 years — longer than anyone else in state history. Now it looks like he’ll be lucky to get beyond two.
 The problem here is that a lot of Republicans are upset the governor has been so quiet, that he hasn’t rolled out an agenda or said much of anything about anyone else’s. Except Catherine Templeton’s.
The Post and Courier: South Carolina Lt. Gov. Kevin Bryant expected to join governor’s race on Friday
Lt. Gov. Kevin Bryant, a former state senator known as one of the S.C. Legislature’s staunchest social conservatives, looks like he will join the 2018 governor’s race this week. The Anderson pharmacist has scheduled a 10 a.m. Friday news conference in his Upstate hometown to announce “his plans for the 2018 election year,” according to a press release issued Wednesday.
Over the weekend, the FBI announced it was joining the ongoing investigation into a series of corruption allegations between several of South Carolina’s state agencies and the top political consultant firm in the state. Gov. Henry McMaster had been a longtime client, but he was forced to part ways as the investigation grew.
The Post and Courier: FBI investigating South Carolina Statehouse corruption, could expand scope of state probe
Quinn is a veteran political operative and longtime consultant to Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who Templeton is trying to unseat in next year’s GOP primary. McMaster, a former U.S. attorney and state attorney general, is not a known target of the probe. He ended his three-decade relationship with Quinn in May as the Statehouse probe heated up. 
With every day that passes, his election prospects look worse and worse.

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