FORT MILL — Sixteen Republican candidates for state and federal offices addressed York County voters Thursday evening at the Reaganites Conservative Forum, held at Antioch International Church on Glynwood Forest Drive.
The forum gave attendees the chance to hear directly from candidates seeking the offices of governor, attorney general, commissioner of agriculture, US Senate, US Congress, the South Carolina House and York County Probate Judge before the June 9 primary election.
Reaganites president Nancy Nicholson opened the program and described the organization as a grassroots political action committee registered in South Carolina that supports conservative candidates. Pastor Jesse Enns of Antioch International Church delivered the invocation. Tega Cay City Councilman Jim Foltz, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Four scheduled speakers did not attend. US Congresswoman Nancy Mace and US Congressman Ralph Norman, both running for governor, were absent due to votes in Congress, Nicholson said. South Carolina State Senator Stephen Goldfinch, a candidate for attorney general, and businessman Mark Lynch, a candidate for US Senate, were also not present. Warren Norman, the congressman’s son, and Paul Dans, a former candidate for US Senate, spoke on behalf of Ralph Norman and Lynch.
Governor candidates
South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette told the audience she would seek to eliminate the state income tax on her first day in office and would push to cut what she described as more than 80,000 state regulations. She criticized South Carolina State University for rescinding her invitation to deliver a commencement address, citing her positions on abortion, diversity programs and immigration enforcement.
“We need Republicans with a backbone,” Evette said.
Evette also said any institution in South Carolina receiving taxpayer dollars that suppresses conservative speech should be defunded, and said the state should end tenure at public universities.
Attorney General Alan Wilson, who is also seeking the governor’s office, told the room he has served 15 years as the state’s chief prosecutor and 30 years in the military. He said he has sued the Biden and Obama administrations hundreds of times, defended the state heartbeat bill at the South Carolina Supreme Court and oversaw prosecutions of child predators, drug traffickers and corrupt officials.
“I will be a governor who is accessible to you. I will be a governor who is accountable to you,” Wilson said. He listed eliminating the state income tax, reducing property taxes, cutting waste in government and improving roads and bridges among his priorities.
Warren Norman appeared in place of his father, US Congressman Ralph Norman, and described the congressman’s business background and approach to negotiation. He said his father is willing to take unpopular positions and resists pressure from special interests, and is exacting with money.
“He treats other people’s money or even government money like it was his own,” the younger Norman said.
Attorney general candidates
Eighth Circuit Solicitor David Stumbo told the audience he has served as chief prosecutor in Greenwood, Laurens, Newberry and Abbeville counties since 2012 and has the endorsement of 18 sheriffs and five solicitors. He said the way South Carolina selects judges is at the root of problems in the state’s judicial system and that judicial reform should be a priority for the next attorney general.
Stumbo said he would defend South Carolina election laws, including voter ID requirements, and would continue defending the state heartbeat bill against legal challenges.
First Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe told voters he has prosecuted cases for 33 years and was the first public official in South Carolina to call publicly for the firing squad as a method of execution. He said he sent a convicted cop killer to the firing squad last spring.
“An attorney general’s duty is to be where corruption needs an adversary,” Pascoe said. He said he would file nuisance suits against companies operating chemical facilities near schools and would terminate state contracts held by lawyer legislators on his first day in office.
Commissioner of agriculture candidates
Four candidates for commissioner of agriculture spoke at the forum.
Farmer Danny Lee Ford II, who said his son recently told him he wants to grow up to be a farmer, told the audience young people leaving college cannot afford current land prices and still expect to make a living farming soybeans, cotton or cattle. Ford cited national figures showing farmers die by suicide at three and a half times the national average and proposed direct state contracts to keep the roughly 18 remaining South Carolina dairies in business by supplying public schools.
Cody Simpson, former state executive director for the South Carolina USDA Farm Service Agency, told the audience he was endorsed by President Donald Trump and said the office of commissioner of agriculture has not been substantially reformed since it opened in 2002. He said South Carolina has lost more than 300,000 acres of farmland over the past 25 years, including roughly 800 acres now in Chinese ownership. Simpson said the department should be led by someone who understands farm operations from the ground up.
Fred West, former director of market development at the South Carolina Department of Agriculture, walked the audience through the agency’s regulatory work, including metrology, gas pump inspections, fuel quality testing at airports and food safety inspections at roughly 24,000 facilities statewide. West said he is the only candidate in the race with decades of executive experience running a complex agribusiness operation. The agency employs about 250 people and operates on a $60 million budget, he said.
Farmer Jeremy Cannon, a fourth generation grower from Turbeville, said he secured an international cucumber contract for South Carolina farmers in 2017 after the 2015 floods devastated his crops. He said the program has grown from a 150 acre contract in its first year to nearly 3,000 acres last year and now generates about $5 million in annual revenue for state growers across multiple buyers. Cannon said the work he did to bring that contract back to South Carolina should have been done by the commissioner.
Other speakers
Other speakers included York County Associate Probate Judge Anna Miller and attorney Daniel Harshaw, both running for York County Probate Judge; motivational speaker and author Thomas Dismukes, running for US Senate; Antioch Church pastor and Patriotic Students of America founder Dr. Elizabeth Enns, running for South Carolina House District 26; State Representative Jackie Terribile, the incumbent running for reelection in South Carolina House District 66; and State Senator Wes Climer, running for the US House of Representatives.
Climer arrived late from Columbia, where the Senate began debate Thursday on congressional redistricting legislation. He urged the audience to call senators and ask them to vote to suspend Senate Rule 15B, which he said would allow the bill to move forward in time to improve its chances of withstanding a court challenge.
The South Carolina primary election takes place June 9.
Source: Reaganites Conservative Forum, Antioch International Church, Fort Mill, May 21, 2026.
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