Paul Thurmond | |
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| Member of the South Carolina Senate from the 41st district | |
| In office January 2013 –January 2017 | |
| Preceded by | Walter Hundley |
| Succeeded by | Sandy Senn |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Paul Reynolds Thurmond January 9,1976 Aiken,South Carolina,U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Katie Thurmond |
| Children | 5 |
| Parent(s) | Strom Thurmond Nancy Moore Thurmond |
| Relatives | James Strom Thurmond Jr. (brother) Essie Mae Williams (half-sister) |
| Alma mater | Vanderbilt University (BA) University of South Carolina (JD) |
| Occupation |
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Paul Reynolds Thurmond (born January 9, 1976) is an American politician from the state of South Carolina. A member of the Republican Party, Thurmond is a former member of the South Carolina Senate. He is the youngest child (and one of three surviving children) of Strom Thurmond, who served in the United States Senate for 48 years.
Paul was born to Nancy (née Moore) and Strom Thurmond on January 9, 1976, the couple's fourth child. [1] Paul's father was 73 years old at the time of his birth. [2] In February 1976, Strom enrolled Paul in The Citadel for a 1993 admission. [1] [3] He attended Aiken High School in Aiken, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt University, where he received a scholarship to play tennis. [4] [5] He received his Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law. [6] [7]
Thurmond served as an assistant solicitor in the Ninth Circuit Solicitor's Office, leaving the position in 2005 to open his own law firm, formerly Thurmond Kirchner Timbes & Yelverton, P.A., now Thurmond, Kirchner, and Timbes Law Firm [6] In 2006, he was elected to the Charleston County council. Though he initially announced he would leave politics in 2009, opting not to run for a second term as a councilman, [8] Thurmond chose to run for a seat in the United States House of Representatives, representing South Carolina's 1st congressional district, following Henry E. Brown Jr.'s retirement in 2010. [9] Thurmond finished second in the Republican primary, forcing a runoff election against Tim Scott. [10] Scott defeated Thurmond in the runoff. [11]
Thurmond ran for the South Carolina Senate in 2012 to represent the 41st district. The seat was vacated by Glenn F. McConnell, who became Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina. [12] Thurmond defeated Walter Hundley, who succeeded McConnell in a special election held in July 2012. [13] Thurmond won the general election, defeating Paul Tinkler, a Charleston City Councilman and member of the Democratic Party, on November 6, 2012. [14]
In the aftermath of the shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, in which nine people —including Thurmond's colleague Clementa Pinckney — were killed, Thurmond called for the Confederate flag to be permanently removed from the grounds of the State House in July 2015. [15]
Thurmond did not seek re-election in 2016. The American Conservative Union gave him an 88% evaluation and the Club for Growth gave him a 90% evaluation. [16]
Thurmond has a wife, Katie, three sons and two daughters. [7] One of four siblings, he was also the half-brother (through his father) of the late Essie Mae Williams, who was 50 years his senior.
James Strom Thurmond, Sr. was an American politician who represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to 2003. Before his 48 years as a senator, he served as the 103rd governor of South Carolina from 1947 to 1951. Thurmond was a member of the Democratic Party until 1964 when he joined the Republican Party for the remainder of his legislative career. He also ran for president in 1948 as the Dixiecrat candidate, receiving over a million votes and winning four states.
The 1984 United States Senate elections were held on November 6, with the 33 seats of Class 2 contested in regular elections. They coincided with the landslide re-election of President Ronald Reagan in the presidential election. In spite of the lopsided presidential race, Reagan's Republican Party suffered a net loss of two Senate seats to the Democrats, although it retained control of the Senate with a reduced 53–47 majority. Democrats defeated incumbents in Illinois and Iowa, and won an open seat in Tennessee, while Republicans defeated an incumbent in Kentucky.
The 1978 United States Senate elections were held on November 7, in the middle of Democratic President Jimmy Carter's term. The 33 seats of Class 2 were contested in regular elections. Special elections were also held to fill vacancies.
The 1954 United States Senate elections was a midterm election in the first term of Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidency. The 32 Senate seats of Class 2 were contested in regular elections, and six special elections were held to fill vacancies. Eisenhower's Republican party lost a net of two seats to the Democratic opposition. This small change was just enough to give Democrats control of the chamber with the support of an Independent who agreed to caucus with them, he later officially joined the party in April 1955.
Burnet Rhett Maybank was a three-term US senator, the 99th governor of South Carolina, and mayor of Charleston, South Carolina. He was the first governor from Charleston since the American Civil War (1861-1865) and one of twenty people in United States history to have been elected mayor, governor, and United States senator. During his tenure in the Senate, Maybank was a powerful ally of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His unexpected death on September 1, 1954, from a heart attack, led to Strom Thurmond being elected senator.
The South Carolina Republican Party (SCGOP) is the state affiliate of the national Republican Party in South Carolina. It is one of two major political parties in the state, along with the South Carolina Democratic Party, and is the dominant party. Incumbent governor Henry McMaster, as well as senators Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham, are members of the Republican party. Graham has served since January 3, 2003, having been elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2008, 2014, and 2020; Tim Scott was appointed in 2013 by then-governor Nikki Haley, who is also a Republican.
The 1956 South Carolina United States Senate special election was held on November 6, 1956 to select the U.S. Senator from the state of South Carolina simultaneously with the regular Senate election. The election resulted from the resignation of Senator Strom Thurmond on April 4, 1956, who was keeping a campaign pledge he had made in the 1954 election. Thurmond was unopposed in his bid to complete the remaining four years of the term.
The 1984 South Carolina United States Senate election was held on November 6, 1984, to select the U.S. Senator from the state of South Carolina. Popular incumbent Republican Senator Strom Thurmond cruised to re-election against Democratic challenger Melvin Purvis.
The 1978 South Carolina United States Senate election was held on November 7, 1978, to select the U.S. senator from the state of South Carolina. Popular incumbent Republican Senator Strom Thurmond defeated Democratic challenger Charles D. Ravenel.
Timothy Eugene Scott is an American businessman and politician serving as the junior United States senator from South Carolina since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a Charleston city councilor, a state representative, and a U.S. Representative. He also worked in financial services before entering politics.
Benjamin Frasier Jr. is a perennial candidate for political office in South Carolina, having run for Congress over fifteen times since 1972. He actually became the Democratic Party nominee for the November 2010 election, "surpris[ing] observers" by beating retired Air Force Reserve Colonel Robert Burton in South Carolina's 1st congressional district Democratic Party primary, with 56 percent of the vote to Burton's 44 percent.
A special election for South Carolina's 1st congressional district was held on May 7, 2013, to fill the seat following the resignation of U.S. Representative Tim Scott, who was appointed to the United States Senate by Governor Nikki Haley to fill the seat previously held by Jim DeMint. DeMint resigned from the Senate on January 2, 2013, to accept a position as president of The Heritage Foundation.
Wendell G. Gilliard is an American politician, steelworker, and union official. A Democrat, Gilliard serves as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, representing the 111th District.
The 2018 South Carolina gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 2018, to elect the Governor of South Carolina. Incumbent Republican Governor Henry McMaster, who took office after Nikki Haley resigned to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, ran for election to a full term. The primary was held on June 12, with the Democrats nominating State Representative James E. Smith Jr. McMaster failed to win a majority of the vote, and then defeated John Warren in the Republican runoff on June 26. In the general election, McMaster defeated Smith, winning election to a full term.
James Strom Thurmond Jr. is a former United States Attorney for the District of South Carolina and 2nd Circuit Solicitor. He is one of four children born to long-serving United States Senator Strom Thurmond and Nancy (Moore) Thurmond. His younger brother, Paul, is a former member of the South Carolina Senate. Thurmond graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1995 and University of South Carolina School of Law in 1998. He is the oldest currently living child of Strom Thurmond following the deaths of his older sister Nancy in 1993 and his half-sister Essie in 2013.
Charles Dufort "Pug" Ravenel was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party from South Carolina who won the 1974 Democratic gubernatorial primary. Ravenel was the favorite to win the general election until the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled his candidacy invalid on the grounds that he did not meet the state's residency requirements. The eventual winner of the election was James B. Edwards, the state's first Republican governor in decades.
These six off-year races featured special elections to the 113th United States Congress to fill vacancies due to resignations in the United States House of Representatives. Two were due to Congressmen taking seats in the United States Senate, one resigned to take jobs in the private sector, one resigned to take a job in the public sector, and one resigned due to an impending federal indictment regarding misuse of campaign funds.
Sandy Senn is a member of the South Carolina Senate from the 41st District, serving since 2016. She is a member of the Republican Party.
The 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in South Carolina were held on November 8, 2022, to elect the seven U.S. representatives from the state of South Carolina, one from each of the state's seven congressional districts. The elections coincided with other elections to the House of Representatives, elections to the United States Senate and various state and local elections.
On August 28, 1957, Strom Thurmond, then a Democratic United States senator from South Carolina, began a filibuster intended to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The filibuster—an extended speech designed to stall legislation—began at 8:54 p.m. and lasted until 9:12 p.m. the following day, a duration of 24 hours and 18 minutes. This made the filibuster the longest single-person filibuster in United States Senate history, a record that still stands as of 2024. The filibuster focused primarily on asserting that the bill in question, which provided for expanded federal protection of African American voting rights, was both unnecessary and unconstitutional, and Thurmond recited from documents including the election laws of each U.S. state, Supreme Court decisions, and George Washington's Farewell Address. Thurmond focused on a particular provision in the bill that dealt with certain court cases, but opposed the entirety of the bill.
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