2024 General Election Results: A Letter from CVSC President John Tynan
Friends,
There’s no way to spin it. Last night’s election results are not what the CVSC team was hoping for.
We didn’t weigh in on the federal elections, but their outcomes cast a big shadow today. We are now looking at an anti-environment Presidential Administration paired with an anti-environment US Senate. There remains a potential for either an anti-environment US House or for a pro-environment House to be the lone check against the other bodies.
When we saw similar results in 2016 at the federal level, states and local governments had to step up to advance conservation and environmental policy–and we did. Across the country, communities committed themselves to 100% clean energy and allocated billions of dollars for land and water protection. South Carolina and other states must now step up again.
State & Local Election Roundup
There were a handful of bright spots in South Carolina last night. Many of our key conservation allies in the House and Senate were re-elected, including Heather Bauer and Spencer Wetmore in the House and Tom Davis, Chip Campsen, and Brad Hutto in the Senate.
We retained conservation allies in a number of open House and Senate districts with the victories of Jefferey Graham and Russell Ott in the Senate and Jason Luck and Hamilton Grant in the House.
We also saw a number of our endorsed candidates from the June Primary–who didn’t face significant challenges in the General Election–officially win election to the House and Senate. This includes Blake Sanders, Paul Wickensimer, David Martin, and Charlie Hartz
Finally, in Jasper County, CVSC and our conservation allies successfully supported a sales tax referendum that will ultimately generate nearly $100m for land protection efforts.
But we also had a number of heartbreaking losses in the House and Senate, which will present new challenges moving forward.
In the South Carolina State Senate, we now have a Republican supermajority with the loss of four seats previously held by Democrats. With these and other primary changes, over a quarter of the chamber will be totally new to the General Assembly. In the South Carolina House, none of CVSC’s targeted swing seats flipped to pro-environment control, maintaining the House’s Republican supermajority.
How a new Senate supermajority and continued House supermajority operate remain to be seen, but our experience from a House supermajority these last few years suggests less bipartisan cooperation and more extreme policy priorities. In addition, the conservative “Freedom Caucus” in the House will remain at least as strong as it has been these last two years.
Finally, our efforts to win critical County Council elections in Charleston and Greenville Counties failed to flip the balance of power in either county towards conservation.
For a full listing of our endorsements and the results, you can check out our election page at cvsc.org/elections.
What Does this mean for Conservation Policy and CVSC?
When I ask myself this question, I’m reminded that we’ve been here before. CVSC has built bipartisan support for the environment and strategically and intentionally advanced bold conservation policies during a Trump Administration, with a Republican majority in the SC House and Senate.
During the first Trump Administration from 2017-2020, we passed tangible land protection, clean energy, and ocean protection policies, including permanently reauthorizing the Conservation Bank, passing state bans against offshore drilling, and unanimous passage of the Energy Freedom Act.
These pieces of legislation have continued to make significant impacts on people’s lives in South Carolina. These Trump 1.0-era wins show me we can survive this.
A few things have changed since 2020. We have stronger relationships with members of House Leadership, including a number of Committee Chairs. We have elected a number of new Republican and Democrat conservation champions to the House and Senate over the last four years, most of whom are returning next year. And we have a larger staff and base of advocates to mobilize to advocate for proactive environmental policy.
But in Trump 1.0, we didn’t have Republican supermajorities in the House or Senate. We also didn’t have the Freedom Caucus in the House, pulling both the House and the Senate to the right. So, yes, we’ve had success under a Trump Administration with Republican control of the SC General Assembly. But this time is different.
Thankfully, CVSC is still here and can and will rise to meet the challenges—known and unknown—that face us in the years ahead. But we need your support to ensure we have the resources to keep up the fight.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The differences in the South Carolina General Assembly from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0 will require CVSC and the conservation movement to be intentional, strategic, and creative in how we frame issues and build political alliances. These differences will require us to forge deeper relationships in both chambers as we build the durable bipartisan coalitions necessary to introduce and advance bold policy solutions like we did from 2017 to 2020.
We will need to hold lawmakers in the Senate, House, and City and County Councils accountable to their votes, ensuring constituents know when lawmakers are supporting a clean and healthy environment or when they are working against it. This means an expanded accountability program that communicates with voters early and often.
We will need to work year-round to ensure that people and communities are encouraged to participate in both advocacy and elections in order to push for the issues they care about. This means more work engaging and supporting partners, but also plugging gaps with ‘boots on the ground’ where needed.
We will need to recruit candidates early and ensure we prepare them to run the marathon campaigns that they will need to execute to win. This means expanded candidate recruitment and training efforts as well as deeper relationships in communities as we work to identify the next elected conservation champions.
Thankfully, CVSC has the staffing and expertise to meet these needs. We have a track record of successful bipartisan collaboration in the General Assembly, we have the policy expertise to craft durable policy solutions, we have the partnerships team to grow and support the conservation movement to be an even more formidable force, and we have the political capacity to elevate community leaders into conservation champions in elected office.
We have these pieces in place, but we need your support to scale them to levels that will generate the impacts we hope to see.
If we are going to protect 3 million more acres of land and water, ensure every community has clean water to drink and clean air to breathe, and transition to a clean energy economy, we will need your support–both now and well into the future.
Slowing Down to Breathe
After every election—good or bad—I tell my team to slow down and breathe. Whether we’re looking to capitalize on our wins or figure out how we pick through the aftermath of an election, there is always a lot of work ahead of us.
We’re in that space now. There is a lot of work to do, and there are a lot of questions to answer about what conservation advocacy will look like for the next four years. What policies can we pass? What will we have to defend against? How will the new Senate operate? How much influence will the Freedom Caucus exert in the House?
Yes, there is a lot to figure out. But CVSC and conservation voters like you are passionate and committed to protecting the air, land, and water we love. We are here for the long game and will not stop fighting.
So, for now, slow down and breathe as we plan for what the future holds.
Thank you for all you do for CVSC and for South Carolina.
Stay strong,
John Tynan
CVSC President