‘Sister senator’ in GOP battle 4 years after flipping a seat long held by Democrats
Raw StoryFour years ago, Sen. Penry Gustafson stunned political observers when she narrowly beat long-time Democratic incumbent Vincent Sheheen to flip the Senate seat that spans the Midlands to the North Carolina border. “I have no idea what’s going to happen on Tuesday,” Gustafson told the SC Daily Gazette on Thursday. “I think if anybody gets lazy and takes a vote for granted that’s when they lose, and that’s what happened to Sen. Vincent Sheheen.” In 2020, Gustafson bested Sheheen — a 16-year senator who was twice Democrats’ gubernatorial nominee — by 2 percentage points, or less than 900 votes. Gustafson was among the chambers’ five female senators, who called themselves “ sister senators,” who helped defeat the near-total ban passed by House Republicans that would have made abortions illegal from the moment a pregnancy is medically detectable. The other two GOP “ sister senators” who voted “no” to the law upheld by the state Supreme Court last August also face primary challenges.
Discover Related
