Who are the 2 Republicans vying to unseat Jim Clyburn? (2024)

November marks 32 years since U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn first scored a seat in Congress. Some 16 terms later, Clyburn remains a fixture of Palmetto State politics, a prominent Democrat whose 2020 endorsem*nt of Joe Biden helped resuscitate the candidate’s flagging campaign.

In February, after stepping down from House Democratic leadership, Clyburn announced his intent to run for a 17th term. He has handedly won races for decades, and if his streak holds, Clyburn will be sworn into the 119th Congress about six months after turning 84.

Two Walterboro Republicans say it’s time for Clyburn to go.

Duke Buckner, a former Walterboro city councilman, and Justin Scott, a welder and small business owner, will face off in the June 11 GOP primary for control of the expansive Sixth Congressional District.

The area’s boundaries are hotly contested: For years, the district encompassed rural counties in the state’s Black belt, plus many majority-Black precincts around Columbia and Charleston.

Flanked by red on all sides, District 6’s lines changed in January 2022 — when the Republican-controlled state Legislature passed a map drastically altering the composition of Districts 1 and 6.

The South Carolina NAACP filed a lawsuit contending the newly drawn lines were racially gerrymandered, and the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, though the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the lines as constitutional on May 23.

The redrawn maps siphoned 30,000 Black voters from the 1st District to the 6th. That configuration is most consequential for the newly U-shaped District 1, because it concentrates Republican voters in an area Nancy Mace currently represents.

Still, after years of fixed boundaries, District 6 now has a fresh silhouette — and two fresh faces vying to unseat its Democratic standard-bearer who has no opposition in the Democratic primary.

Duke Buckner

Buckner has navigated South Carolina schools from both sides — first as a student at Walterboro High School and South Carolina State University, then as a middle and high school English teacher in Colleton County.

After his stint teaching, Buckner and his wife launched Colleton County’s first Black-owned and operated newspaper, the Community Times-Dispatch.

A long-held dream to practice law took him to South Florida, where he earned his J.D. and worked as a public defender. A few years later, he returned to Walterboro, opened his own law firm and scored a seat on City Council.

As a local politician, Buckner said he trained his energies on cutting crime. Among his accomplishments, he added, was encouraging community policing, and scoring funding for officers to reside in the communities they patrolled.

Buckner said his background is suited for a job in Washington, though this isn’t his first bid for Congress. In 2022, after easily winning the primary, Buckner scored 37.9 percent of the vote to Clyburn’s 62 percent. He also unsuccessfully challenged Lindsey Graham for Senate in 2020.

This race, Buckner said, revolves around the economy. Inflation is top of mind for most voters in his district, he added, which encompasses much of South Carolina’s so-called “Corridor of Shame” — the strip of poor, rural counties flanking Interstate 95. In District 6, 20.6 percent of people live below the poverty line, and median household income hovers around $51,412.

Buckner said lowering the corporate tax rate would give businesses more leeway to hire employees, injecting economic prosperity into the area. And if elected, he plans to hire someone to help nonprofits navigate the grant application process, in hopes of securing more money for South Carolina organizations.

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On immigration, Buckner said the government should stem the tide of migrants crossing the southern border. He also proposed enforcing a moratorium on asylum cases until courts resolve the current backlog.

Border crossing isn’t the only national security issue animating Buckner; sustaining domestic birth rates is also a priority. One proposal: having the government pay for prenatal care and birthing services for any woman who opts in.

It’s part of the candidate’s broader pro-lifestance, though Buckner believes abortion is permissible in cases of rape, incest or life-threatening pregnancies. Abortion is “a states issue,” he said. “And that’s where it should stay.”

The former teacher supports school choice and increased funding for the arts. He’s a proponent of teaching students job skills — from plumbing and masonry to carpentry and cosmetology. And he’s intent on abolishing the U.S. Department of Education, arguing school boards are better suited to address local issues. In his opinion, that department’s budget would be better spent on increasing teacher pay and cutting class sizes.

Buckner, a Black Republican, has a message for the Black Democrats who tell him they feel alienated by the party’s progressive contingent — and newly hesitant to vote blue.

“It's time that we vote for the person, not the party,” he said.

Buckner has notched endorsem*nts from Rep. Joe Wilson of District 2; Ken Battle, the former commissioner for South Carolina Minority Affairs; and Veterans for America First/Veterans for Trump.

Justin Scott

Scott has accumulated nearly 30 years of experience in the construction and welding industries. He’s worked as an underwater welder, a nuclear maintenance technician, and after moving to Walterboro from southern New Jersey in 2017, took a job at a local machine manufacturer. A few years later, he launched his own welding business, JS Designs.

A central message of the small business owner’s campaign is this: Congress should rein in “reckless spending” and “bureaucratic overreach.” Scott cited the country’s $34 trillion debt as an example of unsustainable federal expenditures. Cutting programs would help lower that number, he added, though Scott didn’t specify which programs he supports slashing.

Scott called illegal border crossings an “alarming matter of national security.” He suggested reinstating former president Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required migrants seeking asylum to stay in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date. (Biden ended the practice, through which nearly 70,000 migrants were sent back across the border.)

Scott added that he supports deporting unauthorized immigrants residing in the U.S.

“I believe in our rule of law,” he said. “If you don't have documentation supporting your right to be here, you need to go back to where you came from.”

One of Scott’s driving messages is that the country ought to function closer to the founders’ intentions. That includes making way for working people to assume political office by enforcing term limits. Calling Clyburn a “prime example” of a politician who has been in office too long, Scott proposed a two term limit in the Senate and a three term limit in the House.

On abortion, the candidate said he’s fine with South Carolina’s six-week ban. But if the issue is punted back to the federal government, he would back a prohibition on the procedure after 12 weeks.

He’s a proponent of school choice, and an opponent of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion instruction in schools. Preferable to lessons on DEI are those on the Constitution and politics, he said. Scott cited the 1776 Report — a Trump-commissioned project to promote “patriotic education” — as one curriculum he favors.

Uniting Scott and Buckner is the contention that Clyburn, after over three decades in office, hasn’t solved the 6th district’s economic woes. Scott said fresh leadership is badly needed: “I don't see any benefit in having the incumbent in for (32) years when your district struggles with poverty.”

Early voting for the Republican and Democratic primary begins May 28 and ends June 7. The primary is June 11.