Governor Nikki Haley emerged with Lieutenant Governor Henry McMaster in tow at 10 p.m. on the dot to the tune of supporters chanting “four more years.”
It was “a great day in South Carolina,” she said. Not only had she been elected to a second term, but her son had also made his school’s basketball team.
“You took a chance on me the first time when it really didn’t make sense. All I had was words. All I had was a vision,” Haley said. “If you look at what we’ve done, it really is something to celebrate.”
A few hours earlier and a few blocks away, Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” played over the loudspeaker in the Marriott ballroom, but the Democrats were in a pretty low valley.
It was 7:29 p.m., and The Associated Press had called the race in favor of Vincent Sheheen’s opponent nearly half an hour earlier, just one minute after the polls closed.
“I mean, I don’t want to say it was expected,” said College Democrats President Mathieu Erramuzpe, “but it was expected.”
Erramuzpeand his fellow College Democrats were camped out in front of the TV in the hotel lobby, waiting for results from other national races to pour in.
“There’s no TV in there,” he said, nodding toward the ballroom. “So we’re glued to this one.”
His eyes strayed from the screen and Erramuzpe took a pause when asked if he felt as though they’d made a difference. The race was called immediately after the polls had closed. The ballroom booked for the Democrats “victory party” was sparse, and it didn’t seem to be filling quickly.
But the College Democrats had spent every weekend of the semester canvassing and campaigning around the county, the state and beyond. After a moment, he answered with a firm “yes.” The College Democrats weren’t solely focusing on the gubernatorial election, he said. They traveled to Raleigh to support Kay Hagan and Charleston to campaign for Mary Tinkler. The battle for governor wasn’t the only one they were fighting.
But it was the battle that Haleyhad won.
“She has stood every test. She has mastered every challenge,” McMaster said. “To quote that great philosopher Tim McGraw, ‘We like it. We love it. We want some more of it.’”
Haley and McMaster will be in the Statehouse for the next four years, but when he conceded, Sheheen made it clear he wasn’t ready to back down.
“I plan to work with her when we agree,” Sheheen said, “and when we disagree, to do it in a respectful way that moves the state forward.”
It was three and a half hours after the race was called when Sheheen delivered his concession. The lieutenant governors’ race wasn’t called as early but yielded the same result.
“So, we’re at a victory party, and for the past two decades, we’ve only been getting the party right,” Bakari Sellers said, as his eyes filled with tears. “But soon comes the victory.”
In the meantime, Haley was taking advantage of the victory, already delivering her plans to focus on opportunities and workforce training over the next four years and making sure everyone in the state has “a place to live a better life for them and their family than they have before.”
“This is the year we will clean up Columbia,” Haley said. “This is the year you will trust your government again.”
Voters knew well before the governor made her appearance that the Republican Party had come out on top, so hearing the results came as no surprise.
“It reaffirms that Haley is a Republican," USC law student Michael Hirsch said, “but she also appeals to both sides in some respects.”
It had been a long fight for all sides. But after the months of planning, campaigning, strategizing and hoping, there was only one governor.
And it wasn’t Sheheen.
“I have carried the torch of change for a while now, and I am proud to hand it off,” Sheheen said. “And let me tell you this: change is hard in South Carolina. We know that. But that torch will never go out.”