Marshall Clement "Mark" Sanford Jr. (born May 28, 1960) is an American politician, real estate developer and author who served as the U.S. representative for South Carolina's 1st congressional district from 1995 to 2001 and from 2013 to 2019, and as the 115th governor of South Carolina from 2003 to 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Sanford was first elected to Congress in 1994, serving three terms in the House of Representatives. He ran for governor in 2002, defeating Democratic incumbent Jim Hodges, and was re-elected in 2006. As governor, Sanford attempted to reject $700 million in stimulus funds for South Carolina from the federal Recovery Act passed in 2009, but the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that only the state legislature had the authority to accept or decline the funds.
Sanford successfully ran for Congress in a 2013 special election for his old seat. He ran for re-election in 2018 but lost renomination in the Republican primary to Katie Arrington. In 2019, Sanford launched a 2020 presidential campaign, seeking to challenge incumbent President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, but shortly dropped out of the race. In 2026, he filed to run for his old seat, but later withdrew. After Senator Lindsey Graham died, Sanford launched a bid for the Republican special Senate nomination for that seat, failing to make the runoff by placing fourth.
Early life and family Marshall Clement Sanford Jr. was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Marshall Clement Sanford, a cardiothoracic surgeon, and Margaret Elise "Peggy" Pitz. His family was fairly well-to-do, but slept in the same room to conserve electricity. Before his senior year of high school, Sanford moved with his family from Fort Lauderdale to the Coosaw Plantation near Beaufort, South Carolina. Sanford attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.
Sanford received a Bachelor of Arts degree in business from Furman University in 1983 and a Master of Business Administration degree from Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia in 1988.https://www.usnews.com/news/campaign-2008/articles/2008/05/22/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-mark-sanford 10 Things You Didn't Know About Mark Sanford U.S. News & World Report
Sanford married Jenny Sullivan in November 1989. The couple had four sons.
Sanford founded Norton and Sanford Real Estate Investment, a leasing and brokerage company, in 1992.
In June 2009, after disappearing from the state for a week, Sanford revealed that he had engaged in an extramarital affair. He had told his staff that he was going hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but actually went to visit his mistress, Maria Belén Chapur, in Argentina. The affair made national headlines, leading to his censure by the South Carolina General Assembly and his resignation as chair of the Republican Governors Association.
Ryan Lizza alleged that Sanford had an affair with reporter Olivia Nuzzi in 2020. Lizza was formerly engaged to Nuzzi.
U.S. House of Representatives (1995–2001) Elections
1994 In 1994, Sanford entered the Republican primary for the Charleston-based 1st Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. The seat had come open after four-term Republican incumbent Arthur Ravenel declined to seek re-election in his ultimately unsuccessful run for governor. Despite having never run for office before, Sanford finished second in a crowded primary behind Van Hipp Jr., a former George H. W. Bush administration official and former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. Sanford defeated Van Hipp in the runoff. He then easily defeated Democratic state representative Robert A. Barber Jr. in the November general election, winning by 66.3% to 32.4%.
1996–1998 Sanford was unopposed by Democratic candidates in 1996 and 1998. In 1996, he beat Joseph Innella of the Natural Law Party by 96.36% to 3.55%. He beat Innella again in 1998, this time by 91% to 8.9%.
Tenure While in Congress, Sanford was recognized as its most fiscally conservative member by the Cato Institute. He was also recognized by Citizens Against Government Waste, as well as the National Tax Payers Union, for his efforts to rein in government spending and reduce the national deficit. He garnered a lifetime rating of 92 from the American Conservative Union.
He was known for voting against bills that otherwise received unanimous support.Profile of Sanford at NewsHours coverage of '02 governor's race For example, he voted against a bill that preserved sites linked to the Underground Railroad. He voted against pork barrel projects even when they benefited his own district; in 1997, he voted against a defense appropriations bill that included funds for Charleston's harbor. Seeing himself as a "citizen-legislator", he did not run for reelection in 2000, in keeping with a promise to serve only three terms in the House.
Committee assignments Committee on International Relations Committee on Government Reform Committee on Science Joint Economic Committee
Governor of South Carolina (2003–2011) 2002 election
In 2002, just before announcing he would run for governor, Sanford joined the Air Force Reserve. He entered the gubernatorial election of 2002; he first defeated Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler in the Republican primary and then defeated the Democratic incumbent, Jim Hodges, in the general election, by a margin of 53% to 47% to become the 115th governor of South Carolina. In accordance with South Carolina law, Sanford was elected separately from the state's Republican lieutenant governor, Andre Bauer. Sanford and Bauer's wins gave the Republicans full control of state government for the first time since Reconstruction.
First term (2003-2007) In 2003, after becoming governor, Sanford attended two weeks of training with the Air Force Reserve in Alabama with his unit, the 315th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron. While in training in 2003, Sanford did not transfer power to Bauer, saying he would be in regular contact with his office, and would transfer authority in writing only if he were called to active duty.
Sanford sometimes had a contentious relationship with the South Carolina General Assembly, even though it was dominated by his party for his entire tenure. During his administration, governmental power was largely held by three members of the General Assembly: Senators Hugh Leatherman and Glenn F. McConnell and House Speaker Bobby Harrell. The Republican-led state House of Representatives overrode 105 of Sanford's 106 budget vetoes on May 26, 2004. The following day, Sanford brought live pigs, who subsequently defecated on the House floor, into the House chamber as a visual protest against "pork projects."
Sanford rejected the Assembly's entire budget on June 13, 2006. Had this veto stood, the state government would have shut down on July 1. He explained his veto as being the only way to get the cuts he desired, and that using the line-item veto would have been inadequate as well as impossible. However, in a special session the following day, both houses dismissed Sanford's call for reform by overriding his veto–effectively restoring their original budget.
In 2003, Sanford sought to reform the state's public college system. Sanford has criticized these schools as focusing too much on separately creating research institutions and not on educating the young adults of South Carolina. Sanford also suggested that they combine some programs as a means of curbing tuition increases. The schools did not respond positively to this suggestion, however, causing Sanford to remark that "if any institution ultimately feels uncomfortable with our push toward coordination, they can exit the system and go private."
Sanford's first term included other controversies. A Time magazine article in November 2005, critical of Sanford, said that some "fear his thrift has brought the state's economy to a standstill."
According to Survey USA, Sanford's approval ratings ranged from 47% to 55% during 2006.
2006 election
His campaign for re-election in 2006 began by Sanford winning the June 13 Republican Primary over Oscar Lovelace, a family physician from Prosperity, with 65% of the vote to Lovelace's 35%. His Democratic competitor in the November elections was state senator Tommy Moore, whom Sanford beat 55% to 45%. Ultimately, Sanford left his first House stint with a 55% approval rating.
On Election Day, Sanford was not allowed to vote in his home precinct because he did not have his voter registration card. He was obliged to go to a voter registration office to get a new registration card. "I hope everybody else out there is as determined to vote as I was today", he said. Sanford's driver's license had a Columbia address, but Sanford was trying to vote at his home precinct in Sullivan's Island. According to WAGT in Augusta, Georgia (whose service area includes part of South Carolina) Sanford declared that it would be his last campaign.
Second term (2007-2011) In dissent with the Republican Party of South Carolina, Sanford opposed the faith-based license plates his state offers, marketed largely to the state's conservative evangelical citizens. After the law to passed without his signature, he wrote: "It is my personal view that the largest proclamation of one's faith ought to be in how one lives his life." The Base Load Review act which ultimately led to the Nukegate scandal, the largest business failure in South Carolina's, was also passed without Sanford's signature.Wilkes, Avery. How SC Lawmakers Enabled the VC Summer Nuclear Fiasco. The State. (2017-08-07) Retrieved from https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article165641762.html on 2020-12-27.
After the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (known as the stimulus), which Sanford strongly opposed and publicly criticized before and after its passage by Congress and presidential signing, Sanford initially indicated he might not accept all of the funds allotted by the spending law to South Carolina. He was criticized by many Democrats and some moderate Republicans, both in his state and outside it, who noted South Carolina's 9.5% unemployment rate (one of the highest in the country) and complained that Sanford was not doing enough to improve economic conditions in his state, which could be alleviated by the stimulus money. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of California, suggested that if Sanford or other governors rejected their portion of stimulus funds, he would be happy to take them instead.
On March 11, 2009, Sanford became the first United States governor to formally reject a portion of the federal stimulus money earmarked by Congress for the state of South Carolina. Sanford compromised to accept the federal money on condition that the state legislature provide matching funds to pay down the South Carolina state debt.
Sanford persuaded state legislator Nikki Haley to run as his successor, and campaigned on her behalf.
2009 disappearance and extramarital affair
From June 18 until June 24, 2009, the whereabouts of Sanford were unknown to the public, his wife, and the State Law Enforcement Division (which provides security for all South Carolina governors). The mystery surrounding Sanford's whereabouts garnered nationwide news coverage; his absence was first reported by Jim Davenport of the Associated Press. Lieutenant Governor André Bauer announced that he could not "take lightly" that Sanford's staff had not communicated with him "for more than four days, and that no one, including his own family, knows his whereabouts."
Before his disappearance, Sanford told his staff that he would be hiking on the Appalachian Trail. While he was gone, he did not answer 15 cell phone calls from his chief of staff; he also failed to call his family on Father's Day.