The gubernatorial campaign of former South Carolina lieutenant governor Yancey McGill has run out of money just as the 2018 race is hitting its homestretch …
According to campaign finance documents filed with the S.C. State Ethics Commission (SCSEC), McGill’s campaign raised an anemic $8,270 during the first quarter of 2018.
Actually, it was worse than that. The 65-year-old politician brought in only $6,570 in campaign contributions between January 1 and the end of March. The remaining $1,700 he donated to his own flagging effort.
After spending roughly $9,900 during the quarter – McGill now has only $422.98 on hand with three months to go until the GOP primary.
And no, we didn’t forget any zeros there … that’s four-hundred twenty-two dollars and ninety-eight cents.
That’s a remarkably weak print – especially when you consider McGill has raised nearly $480,000 since announcing his candidacy (including more than $155,000 raised on his initial fundraising report filed in July of 2016).
So here’s our first question: Where did all of that money go?
Because it sure as hell didn’t produce a credible campaign organization …
And here’s our second question: Why on earth did McGill file to run for this office?
Seriously … with this sort of atrocious financial showing he can’t afford gas money to travel to campaign events, let alone a television ad. Even so, McGill submitted paperwork last month to seek the GOP gubernatorial nomination.
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Despite his embarrassingly weak financial showing, McGill has some pockets of grassroots support across the state. Most of the internal gubernatorial polls we’ve seen show him drawing anywhere from 3-6 percent support amongst the state’s GOP electorate – although one survey recently had him in double digits.
Unless McGill manages a miracle on the fundraising front over the next few weeks, though, he won’t be able to build on that base.
Hell, lieutenant governor Kevin Bryant reported having just under $183,000 on hand at this stage of the race – which we referred to as a “simple insufficient stack of cheddar” earlier today.
As it stands now, the GOP battle will likely boil down to incumbent “Republican” governor Henry McMaster and one of three challengers – Bryant, Lowcountry labor attorney Catherine Templeton and Upstate businessman and Marine veteran John Warren.
In fact, we believe whichever of these three challengers makes it into a runoff election with McMaster will have the upper hand in the winner-take-all battle for the GOP nomination (which is where all the action is in bright red “Republican-controlled” South Carolina).
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