By Geoffrey Skelley | FiveThirtyEight “Sometimes in life, you’ve got to say what you’ve got to say, whether there’s an audience or not for that message,” former Rep. Mark Sanford told the Post and Courier newspaper. BILL CLARK / CQ ROLL CALL Mark Sanford, the former congressman and governor from South Carolina, is no stranger to criticizing President Trump. In fact, it was arguably his vocal condemnation of the president’s polarizing rhetoric and protectionist tendencies that cost him his House seat in 2018. But that hasn’t deterred Sanford from considering mounting a primary challenge against Trump. In an interview with Charleston’s Post and Courier last week, Sanford said he will take the next month to think through launching a campaign to start “pushing a national debate about America’s mounting debt, deficit and government spending.” If he runs, Sanford could be a more attractive option to some Republicans than former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who announced his primary challenge to Trump back in April, as Sanford’s fairly conservative record is considerably more in line with the GOP. But considering that Trump has already “defeated” Sanford once before — Trump endorsed Sanford’s primary opponent in 2018 in a last-minute tweet, and Sanford lost renomination — the issue isn’t as much about whether Sanford could defeat Trump. Rather, the question is: How much trouble could he cause the president in a primary? The South Carolinian has had a long political career, featuring two different stints in the U.S. House with two terms as governor sandwiched in between. He even weathered a memorable political scandal — he went missing for a few days in 2009 “hiking the Appalachian Trail” when he was, in fact, in Argentina carrying on an extramarital affair — to win political office again. And during his nearly two decades in office, Sanford built a reliably conservative (albeit somewhat moderate) record. According to VoteView.com, Sanford was consistently one of the more conservative members of the Republican Party during his congressional tenure. As a result, Sanford’s views may fall closer to the Republican mainstream than the socially liberal, economically moderate positions that Weld espouses. Where Sanford is perhaps most in line with the Republican Party is with his stance on fiscal policy — reduce the deficit now — so if he were to run, this issue would be at the center of his presidential bid. On Wednesday, he even released a video in which he expressed his concerns about America’s fiscal future, arguing that people in Washington “have seemingly forgotten that debt, deficits and spending really do matter.” And Sanford’s record backs up his rhetoric. As a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, Sanford slammed the Trump administration’s budgetary plans for making projections based on “a Goldilocks economy” that he viewed as unrealistically bullish. And as governor, he held the line on government spending, refusing to take money for his state from the 2009 federal stimulus package until the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled against him. In theory, Sanford’s views on fiscal policy could garner him some support in the GOP, but then again, fewer Americans now see reducing the nation’s deficit as a top priority. One other factor that might encourage Sanford to run is South Carolina’s early position on the presidential primary calendar. The “First in the South” contest has voted third (behind Iowa and New Hampshire) in the past two republican contests and would presumably go early once again in 2020 — if the GOP even has a primary there. South Carolina Republicans have said they might not hold a primary in 2020, but Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has said he would support GOP primary if a legitimate challenger to Trump got into the race. Nonetheless, even if Sanford ran and South Carolina held its primary, Trump is quite popular among Republicans in the state — an April poll from Winthrop University found his approval among Republicans and independents who lean Republican to be 79 percent. That might seem low — Gallup has Trump’s approval among Republicans at about 90 percent — but the inclusion of independent GOP leaners probably explains the difference.1 So even if there are some Republican voters who say they oppose Trump or are open to backing a challenger, the percentage who would be willing to support an opponent is too small to seriously threaten Trump’s renomination chances. And that’s because Trump’s approval among republican primary voters nationally is 85 percent, according to recent data from Morning Consult. Trump is also regularly polling north of 80 percent in head-to-head matchups against Weld. So even if Sanford were a stronger challenger than Weld, it’s hard to see any path to victory — the numbers just aren’t there. Back in February, we published a “Primary Challenge Success-O-Meter” to rate the danger posed by different types of primary challengers to an incumbent president. Given Trump’s strengths, Sanford would probably be a weak Level 2 challenger, someone who could make a little bit of a splash but never seriously threaten the president’s chances of renomination. Sanford’s goal would probably be to influence the conversation about the future of the GOP, much as Pat Buchanan did during his unsuccessful yet notable challenge to President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 Republican primary. And arguably, Sanford sees his potential candidacy as about something besides winning. “Sometimes in life you’ve got to say what you’ve got to say, whether there’s an audience or not for that message,” Sanford said in his interview with the Post and Courier, adding, “I feel convicted.”  

The South Carolinian said his bid would focus on the growing federal debt and deficit, issues he says are being largely ignored. By Julian Shen-Berro | HuffPost Mark Sanford, a South Carolina Republican whose once-promising political career suffered setbacks over the last decade, said Tuesday he may make a 2020 primary run against President Donald Trump.  As a House member, Sanford had been a rarity within the GOP ― an outspoken critic of the president. That earned him Trump’s wrath and, with the president endorsing his opponent, Sanford lost the GOP primary last year as he sought reelection. If he commits to the presidential race, Sanford would join former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld as a long-shot primary challenger to Trump, who polls show has maintained strong backing from the GOP’s rank and file. “Sometimes in life you’ve got to say what you’ve got to say, whether there’s an audience or not for that message,” Sanford told the Charleston, South Carolina-based Post and Courier, which first reported his potential candidacy. Sanford, who also served as his state’s governor, said that as a presidential candidate, he would focus on tackling the nation’s growing debt, the deficit and government spending ― issues he contends leaders in both parties are ignoring. “I think that we’re walking our way into one heck of a financial storm and there’s no discussion,” he told CNN. Amid the ongoing controversy Trump created with racist weekend tweets targeting four Democratic congresswomen of color, Sanford added that “more than enough commentary” has concerned the president’s conduct. His aim as a candidate would be to drive discussion on fiscal policy, he said. Sanford, 59, first won election to the House in 1994, then won the governorship in 2002. After winning reelection in 2006, he was widely mentioned by analysts as a potentially strong contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. But Sanford took a pass on that race, and his second gubernatorial term ended in turmoil. In mid-2009, he dropped from public sight for a week in 2009, telling his staff he would be hiking along the Appalachian Trail. It was later discovered that he had traveled to Argentina to engage in an extramarital affair. He faced bipartisan threats of impeachment, but the state lawmakers ultimately chose not to remove him from office. Though many assumed his political career had ended, he re-emerged by winning a special election for a House seat in 2013. He easily won reelection in 2014 and 2016 but, upon Trump becoming president, Sanford’s willingness to criticize both some of his policies and his style hurt him politically. Trump took to Twitter to scorn Sanford as “very unhelpful,” and “nothing but trouble” on the day of the 2018 Republican primary in South Carolina, and he lost to state Rep. Katie Arrington. In an upset, Arrington then lost the November election to Democrat Joe Cunningham. Sanford’s potential presidential run drew immediate criticism from Drew McKissick, head of South Carlina’s Republican Party. “The last time Mark Sanford had an idea this dumb, it killed his Governorship,” McKissick said in a statement. “This makes about as much sense as that trip up the Appalachian trail.” The state’s Democratic Party, on the other hand, welcomed his possible candidacy.  “We look forward to seeing Mark on the trail,” the party said on Twitter. Referring to Trump’s history of womanizing, the statement added, “Always nice to see a candidate with fewer extramarital affairs than the president.  

By Will Seakin | ABC News Fresh off making waves for revealing that he’s considering a primary challenge against President Donald Trump, former South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford said on ABC's “The View” on Thursday that the president's recent attacks on four freshman congresswomen were racist. “Well, to me, if it quacks like a duck and it swims like a duck and it flies like a duck, it's a duck,” Sanford said when asked about the president's recent comments saying Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass. should "go back" to their countries. Three of the progressive Democrats were born in the U.S., and Omar came to the U.S. as a refugee as a child. All four won a popular vote to claim their seats in Congress. Asked if the comments were racist, Sanford said "that's what it sounds like to me," adding that the comments went against the universal ideal of "loving your neighbor." "That doesn't mean liking them, but putting up with them, and having the conversation whether you like it or not. It's at odds with the institution that our founding fathers set up," he added. However, Sanford also warned against playing “Trump game by getting in this spin cycle” around the president's comments. “We'll have this same conversation two weeks from now on another subject and we won't be talking about the way in which the debt, deficit and government spending can affect people's financial futures," he said. While many have noted the long history of Americans telling non-white people to go back to their country as a way of disparaging them, Republicans have been reluctant to criticize the president for the remarks. Four Republicans in Congress voted on Tuesday for a resolution condemning Trump’s tweets as “racist.” Reps. Susan Brooks of Indiana, Fred Upton of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Will Hurd of Texas were the only Republican lawmakers to join House Democrats in passing the resolution by a 240-187 vote. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy defended the president on Tuesday, and dismissed the charge of racism. “Let's not be false about what is happening here today," he said. "This is all about politics and beliefs of ideologies." Sanford's comments follow President Trump's Wednesday night campaign rally in Greenville, NC, where the president doubled down on his attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, and looked on as his largely white crowd broke into repeated chants of "Send her back!" -- a line he appeared to encourage. Omar, who was born in Somalia, is one of the first two Muslim women in Congress. "I said I have a suggestion for the hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down," President Trump told the rally crowd, referring to his racist tweets published over the weekend aimed at four freshman Democratic congressman, including Omar. "They never have anything good to say, that's why I say, hey, if they don't like it let them leave. Leave, let them leave." Omar responded to the president's rally by tweeting out lines from a Maya Angelou poem. Sanford left the governor's office as a national punchline after admitting in 2009 to a bizarre episode in which he claimed to be hiking the Appalachian Trial but had instead traveled to Argentina to pursue an extramarital affair. On Thursday, he was asked how he would handle potential taunts from the president. “It's a chapter of life that I regret, that I have said I'm sorry for, that I repent of, and I move on,” Sanford said. “If I indeed get into which race, I know it's a point of vulnerability, but it's also a point of strength because if you learn from your mistakes, you become a better person for them.” Sanford made an improbable comeback in 2013, when he retook the House seat he held in the 1990s, but lost the seat in 2018, after Trump -- annoyed by Sanford's criticism of him -- tweeted support for Sanford's Republican opponent. Sanford has said he’s going to take the next thirty days to decide whether or not to jump into the Republican primary and challenge the president of the United States on a platform of cutting "the debt, deficit and government spending." Earlier in the week, in an interview with ABC News political director Rick Klein and ABC News senior congressional correspondent Mary Bruce on the "Powerhouse Politics” podcast, Sanford seemed to temper expectations for his potential 2020 campaign, admitting that a victory at the polls wouldn’t necessarily be his main objective should be run. “I don't think that winning necessarily has to be a goal in this kind of thing," Sanford said. "The question is: Can you win in bringing this debate forward … There are ways of winning but not winning in the electoral sense. I think it would be a win if you change the debate [so] we begin to have a real serious conversation on the Republican and Democratic sides of the aisle as to what we do to avoid a financial upheaval." If Sanford were to run he would join fellow former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who launched his own long-shot campaign against the president back in April. Weld has yet to catch any real fire since announcing his run back in April, raising under $700K in the second quarter, however the former Republican governor has launched a number of firey attacks against the president. "I celebrate that America has always been a melting pot, It seems he would prefer an Aryan nation,” Weld said back in May. For Sanford, however, the former congressman says he will make the debt and economy the centerpiece of his campaign if he runs—perhaps a hard case to make given the current state of the economy and the president’s historic support among Republicans. "I mean, that's why people aren't talking about it," Sanford said regarding the difficultly of running on the economy. "They're talking about his different character flaws, what they don't like about what he says, the way he is inflammatory and divisive -- go down the list." Asked whether or not be was a candidate for president, Sanford said: “I'm neither." “What I have said is I'll give it 30 days and see whether, you know, energy and people and resources come my direction as I explore this over the next 30 days, and if they don't, no,” he said.