Hear US House candidates’ pitches to Horry, Georgetown counties voters for 2024 primary
Election season is underway in the Myrtle Beach area, and voters have already started casting ballots in Horry County to determine who will square off in November to represent South Carolina’s Seventh Congressional District.
Republican incumbent Russell Fry will run unopposed in the June 11, 2024, primary, but the Democratic field features two candidates vying to face Fry, who have previously run for office. Mal Hyman, a retired professor who previously taught at Coker University in Hartsville, S.C., and once worked for the United Nations, will face Daryl Scott, a 24-year Army and S.C. National Guard veteran, in the Democratic Primary June 11, 2024.
Hyman ran for the Seventh Congressional District twice before. Former Republican Congressman Tom Rice defeated Hyman in the 2016 general election. In 2018, Hyman lost a run-off election to become the Democratic nominee to Robert Williams, who won with more than 400 votes in a close race.
Meanwhile, this is Scott’s second run to represent the Myrtle Beach area in Congress. The Conway native represented the Democratic party in the 2022 Seventh Congressional District general election, losing to now-incumbent Russell Fry.
In an email to The Sun News, Scott touted his military and educational background, citing his master’s degree in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University as why voters should elect him.
Scott emphasized his support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a proposed bill that expands voting rights protections in response to Supreme Court cases that weakened the Voting Rights Act. Scott also wrote that he supports the already introduced bill ‘For The People Act,’ which would expand voting rights and restructure campaign finance laws.
If elected, Scott wrote that he’d also introduce an “Education Bill of Rights” package of legislation that would give teachers access to loans and other tools to help make housing and transportation costs affordable, among other initiatives.
“My small-town upbringing and military service have ingrained values of integrity, discipline, and dedication within me,” Scott wrote. “I am dedicated to prioritizing key family issues, including educational resources for students and teachers, women’s rights advocacy, quality care for seniors, veterans’ rights championing, and addressing fiscal stewardship.”
Hyman re-entered the political field because he saw many needs in the district that needed addressing.
Hyman said his background as an educator working at the collegiate level and in maximum-security prison gives him a good background for Congress. He added that his policy focuses are:
Early childhood education.
Strengthening Medicare and Social Security.
Increasing the minimum wage.
Increasing health care for civilians and veterans alike.
Climate change.
Rebuilding infrastructure.
Hyman, who has promised not to take donations from corporations during his campaign, added he supports passing bills like the Medicare for All Act, the Women’s Health Protection Act, which expands access to abortion, and the Raise the Wage Act, which increases the minimum wage. He also supports introducing a “Children’s Bill of Rights.”
“I’ve been arguing and campaigning on a Children’s Bill of Rights that all children have a right to food, health care, housing, good schools, safe streets, clean air and clean water,” He added.
Russell Fry focuses on the border and touts the Longs Post Office project
Fry will have to wait until after June 11 to determine who he faces in November, but he is already preparing his pitch to voters about why they should re-elect him to a second term.
Fry will be in Washington, D.C. June 11, 2024, and he credited his work helping Longs secure a new Post Office after the previous one burned down as one way he’s helped local voters.
Fry added that he’s focused on securing the United States border, stopping wasteful spending, and keeping taxes low. He also said he’s in favor of passing the Secure the Border Act of 2023 bill. Fry said he intends to be visible in the area prior to the general election.
“We pride ourselves in being very visible to the public,” Fry said. “We will not be sitting in a basement somewhere. We will be very visible in the district as we always have been.”
While it remains to be seen who wins the Democratic Primary June 11, 2024, Hyman or Scott will face an uphill battle to get to Washington.
Republicans have won every general election since the South Carolina Seventh Congressional District was re-established in 2013. Former Congressman Rice served as the district’s first representative since Hampton Fulmer in 1933, when the Seventh District previously existed. Fulmer, who also represented South Carolina’s second district from 1933 to 1944, was a Democrat, according to govtrack.us.
