Former SC governor, congressman Mark Sanford may run against Trump in 2020

CHARLESTON, SC (WCIV) — Mark Sanford is considering a run for president in 2020.

A former South Carolina Governor, U.S. Congressman and noted detractor of President Donald Trump, Sanford recently said the United States needs “another Ross Perot” moment because of what he feels is looming economic crisis.

Sanford may be positioning himself as that next Ross Perot, according to a Post and Courier report Tuesday saying the longtime Lowcountry politician is thinking of challenging GOP incumbent Donald Trump for president.

Sanford reportedly told the Post and Courier he hasn’t yet made a final decision on whether or not to launch an official candidacy.

If he did run, Sanford reportedly told the newspaper it would be as a Republican, not an independent like Perot, or as part of any other party.

Sanford has since also confirmed to CNN that he is considering a presidential bid, citing financial stability as his primary motivation.

“I think we’re walking our way toward the most predictable financial crisis in the history of man,” Sanford told CNN Tuesday. “I think we’re walking our way into a heck of a financial storm.”

Sanford wasn’t immediately available Tuesday when WCIV reached out to independently confirm reports of his exploration of a presidential candidacy.

However, it’s not clear a challenge by Sanford would ever get to voters on a Republican primary ticket in South Carolina.

The S.C. Republican Party would have to approve a June 2020 primary election for the presidential nomination, something state GOP leaders have considered foregoing in support of the president.

SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick told The Associated Press in December the SCGOP may not put on a 2020 primary because of Trump’s popularity.

Despite sharing a party, Sanford has a well-publicized adversarial relationship with Trump that started around the time of Trump’s 2016 election.

Sanford, representing South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District at the time, was one of only a few Republicans to oppose Trump policy decisions as not true to GOP ideals, or to criticize Trump for his often divisive rhetoric.

Failing to board the Trump train may have derailed Sanford’s 2018 bid for reelection to Congress, prior to which he’d developed a reputation among some as a “Never Trumper.”

It was a narrative Trump himself pedaled. S.C. Rep. Katie Arrington took the SCGOP nomination for Congress in June 2018, after receiving a last-minute endorsement from Trump.

The president in a Tweet backing Arrington labeled Sanford “nothing but trouble,” and said Sanford had been “very unhelpful” to him and his cause, while also sprinkling in a jab about Sanford’s 2009 extramarital affair and week-long disappearance.

Afterward, Sanford suggested his loss to Arrington had been because he wasn’t “Trump enough.” Still, in his concession speech, Sanford said he stood by “every one of those decisions to disagree with the president.”

Not much has changed since then regarding Sanford’s stance on Trump. In a November 2018 opinion column published in the New York Times, Sanford decried the Republican Party’s apparent divergence from real conservative values under Trump.

“My party would be wise to take a step back from President Trump’s approach to politics,” Sanford wrote, adding that the GOP is being held hostage by Trump’s tactics of “insults, bullying and embrace of a post-truth world.”

But the financial decision-making of Trump, Republicans and Democrats in Washington alike have remained targets for Sanford, who’s said Republicans in particular have abandoned their commitment to fiscal conservatism.

“One of the underpinnings of the Republican Party has long been financial responsibility, but here, again, the party has drifted,” Sanford said in November. “The president has done very little to trim the size of the federal government or entitlement spending.”

Sanford painted a more bleak economic and financial portrait of the U.S. in a recent memorial to the late Ross Perot, the infamous fiscal conservative who nearly stole the 1992 U.S. presidential election as an independent.

Sanford opined to The Daily Caller July 12 the United States is “in the worst financial position that it has ever been in since our nation’s start and the Civil War.”

“Government debt is now growing exponentially,” Sanford wrote. “It doubled under President George W. Bush from $5 to $10 trillion. It doubled again from $10 to $20 trillion under President Obama. Under Trump’s watch it’s well on its way to doubling again given his spending has exceeded even Obama’s spending.”

If Sanford does go forward with a presidential run and launch a campaign against Trump, some establishment Republicans feel the move would be foolish.

McKissick, on behalf of the S.C. Republican Party, scoffed Tuesday at reports of Sanford’s possible 2020 challenge to Trump, insulting the former Lowcountry Congressman and mocking the idea as a “vanity project.”

“The last time Mark Sanford had an idea this dumb, it killed his Governorship,” McKissick is quoted as saying in a statement released by the SCGOP.

“This makes about as much sense as that trip up the Appalachian Trail,” McKissick added in a nod to Sanford’s 2009 dalliance.

The South Carolina Democratic Party also took a swipe at both Trump and Sanford in reaction to news of a possible 2020 run by Sanford.

“We look forward to seeing Mark on the trail! Always nice to see a candidate with fewer extra marital affairs than the president,” the party Tweeted with yet another poke at Sanford’s decade-old infidelity scandal.

Sanford has retained a campaign finance war chest of $1.35 million since leaving office in January, according to Federal Election Commission records.