Drew McKissick breaks down the voting rules for the new special primary

What this episode covers

Charlie James: All right, with the passing of Senator Graham and the appointment of Darline Graham Nardone as an interim senator, where do we go from here? Let's go to the, uh, chair of the South Carolina GOP, Drew McKissick, who joins us right now. Drew, I mean, this was totally unexpected, right? Drew McKissick: sighs Totally. I mean, you know, definitely not the way you expect to, to start a, a Sunday morning. I didn't, didn't even find out about it until 6:30 that morning. I got a call from the, uh, director of the State Election Commission. Um, you know, and he had just found out, so I think his first call was to me. Um, and, you know, in talking the way through there in terms of, you know, how we'll have to go forward with a special primary and so forth. But, um, yeah, certainly a big hole, a big hole at the top of our ticket, you know, and how we go forward from here. Charlie James: Okay, so coming up, we are going to have the primary election, uh, the re-primary, I guess. Um, when, when is the filing date on that? Is, is it going to be on the, uh, the 21st? Drew McKissick: So, it'll be the July the 21st, so a week from tomorrow, filing will open. It'll run for a week. So, noon the following Tuesday, uh, the 28th, filing will close. Uh, we will, uh, certify, uh, those to the ballot, uh, probably like within a half an hour, hopefully, of getting them from the election commission. Because the problem is they have to navigate with federal law with, uh, you know, overseas ballots, military, etc. There, there's a timeline built into that— South Carolina Election Commission Charlie James: Right. Drew McKissick: —that they have to be able to, you know, try to accommodate. So, we're going to have to move very fast. Um, and then the primary itself will take place two weeks later. So, August the 11th is the primary date. CBS News + 1 Charlie James: Okay, we're hearing a lot of names out there about people who could jump into this race. With more names, that means the more likelihood of another runoff election. When will that be scheduled? Drew McKissick: That would be two weeks later, which would be August the 25th. Um, so yeah, it's, August is going to be a busy month. There's no doubt about that. YourValley.net Charlie James: So, I mean, some of the names that we're hearing... I mean, we're hear—even hearing, you know, uh, that President Trump might be making some sort of an endorsement in this race. Uh, am I hearing that? Drew McKissick: Yeah. Um, I, I have. I mean, and, and haven't heard, you know, who that would be, but that, they're definitely taking a look at it. And I mean, you know, quite frankly, you're looking at, um, uh, you know, because of the short runway that we're talking about, because of the short runway after that nomination is over to Election Day, and being able to make sure that we get the nominee brought into our overall victory campaign, uh, you know, and integrated into, you know, our joint campaign effort and so forth. Charlie James: Right. Drew McKissick: Uh, you know, you want to hopefully get that wrapped up as quick as you can. It'd be nice not to have a runoff and get those two weeks back. Uh, that wouldn't surprise me to see the President move quickly to try to endorse someone to hopefully sort of clear the decks, or at least as much as possible, and minimize, you know, resources being spent on the primary, which obviously means, you know, you're spending money here, it means you can't spend it later. Uh, and, you know, look, we do not take this election cycle for granted. Whether it's the governor's race, the U.S. Senate race, the 1st Congressional District, the 5th Congressional District, I mean, we now have more open seats than we've had in well over 20 years as a state party— Charlie James: Yeah. Drew McKissick: —to defend in, you know, in a cycle which, you know, nationally the winds are a little bit challenging. But, you know, we, we just need to keep our head down and ...

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