COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) 鈥� Mark Sanford, the Republican former South Carolina congressman and governor whose political ascendency was stalled by a 2009 affair, has ended his latest bid for public office, saying that he’s quitting to reclaim his former coastal district to set up a nonprofit to address the national debt, his signature issue.
Sanford, 65, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was shuttering his campaign just a month after he launched it, a decision inspired by his desire to focus on combating the national debt and deficit.
鈥淲hat I hope to do is to indeed build a grassroots organization 鈥� start small, but I have a fair size circle of friends and folks with whom I have some degree of influence and contacts,鈥� Sanford told the AP, also noting that, with his first grandchild on the way, he realized as he mounted this campaign that he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family.
The pivot comes after Sanford mounted a bid to reclaim his former seat in South Carolina’s 1st District. He entered a primary on the last day of candidate filing, when the race already was chock full of other Republican candidates, many of whom had spent months laying the groundwork for their campaigns.
That territory was familiar to Sanford. An outsider with almost no name recognition when he launched his first congressional campaign for the 1994 contest, the real estate investor finished second in the GOP primary before winning the runoff. He served for six years before his outside run at governor, again pushing his way through a crowded primary, then knocking off the last Democrat to hold the office.
Sanford鈥檚 eight years as governor were overshadowed by the Appalachian Trail, which became shorthand for his disappearance to go to Argentina to see his lover. Sanford鈥檚 wife, family and staff didn鈥檛 know where he was.
Beating back both an impeachment inquiry and calls to resign, Sanford held fast, leaving office on his own terms. His wife at the time, Jenny Sanford, moved out of the governor鈥檚 mansion in Columbia, relocated with their four sons into the family鈥檚 beachfront home near Charleston and later .
In a 2013 special election, Sanford won back his old congressional seat, beating 15 other candidates in a primary and runoff. He won two more full terms before falling in 2018 to a GOP challenger who had President Donald Trump鈥檚 backing.
A year after his primary loss, Sanford reemerged again, launching a long-shot primary challenge to Trump and offering his determination to bring fiscal restraint into the national conversation as a counterpoint to what he described as Trump鈥檚 incendiary rhetoric. Just ahead of the New Hampshire primary, Sanford .
Sanford, who had appeared at county GOP meetings and candidate forums, said he had been getting “a warm reception鈥� on his recent campaign. But with the experience of knowing that in Congress he wouldn’t be able to singularly focus on debt-related issues, he said he felt he would have more impact from the outside.
鈥淭here are no guarantees with life, but I think that this has a better chance of elevating that issue, if I worked earnestly on it, than I was going to with the course that I was on with the campaign,” Sanford said.
In setting up the new organization, which he said would be centered in South Carolina, Sanford will be able to utilize the more than $1.3 million that had remained in his federal account since he left Congress in 2019. Depleting those resources, Sanford said, is a signal he鈥檚 moving away from running for office himself.
But is he done with politics forever? Maybe 鈥� and maybe not.
鈥淟ook, if there鈥檚 ever a guy who would say, 鈥楴ever say never,鈥� it鈥檚 me,鈥� Sanford said. 鈥淏ut I think, realistically, yeah, and it鈥檚 recognition of that being the case.”
Sanford’s decision was first reported by The Post and Courier of Charleston.
___
Meg Kinnard can be reached at .
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
