The U.S. Capitol on June 30, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
A Myrtle Beach Democrat wants voters to know he’s still challenging U.S. Rep. Russell Fry: Never mind his social media post months ago about suspending his campaign.
It was a rookie mistake, John Vincent recently told the SC Daily Gazette.
The retired Navy officer explained that his Facebook announcement in mid-May — saying “we’ve decided to suspend our campaign and focus on activism” — was just a nine-day pause, not an exit from his bid to flip the 7th District.
“I didn’t realize that’s a word in politics that basically means ‘I quit,’” the first-time candidate told the Gazette, referring to the word “suspend.”
He added: “I only wish that my fundraising emails would get as much attention.”
It’s exceedingly rare for a candidate to announce the suspension of a campaign, then jump back into the same race.
After doing a little research, Vincent’s communications director, Scott Billings, pointed to one other candidate for state or federal office who’d done so: In 2006, Republican Michele Bachmann, then a Minnesota state senator, suspended her bid for Congress for her own medical treatment, then came back and won. (However, when she suspended her presidential run in January 2012 ahead of the South Carolina primary, that meant — as it normally does — that she dropped out.)
Vincent’s post, one month after his campaign’s public launch in Florence, came amid his mother-in-law’s rapidly declining health. He needed to go to Iowa to help coordinate her care and didn’t want to ask for donations or volunteers when he expected to be gone for several months, he said.
But by June, Vincent had renewed his effort to become the first Democrat in modern history to represent the 7th District, which spans the Grand Strand and much of the Pee Dee. And he has an expanded campaign staff to help.
After his mother-in-law’s death in August, Vincent hosted the Fighting for Democracy Festival in North Myrtle Beach, which he said roughly 400 people attended.
Vincent, who retired in 2003 as command master chief petty officer after 20 years in the Navy, has called Myrtle Beach home for over two years. His campaign website sums up his campaign platform with three broad messages: “fight government chaos,” “support families,” and “honor veterans and those who serve.”
Asked about his opponent, Fry said he wasn’t aware he still had one.
“John Vincent hasn’t dropped out again? That’s news to me,” the Horry County Republican said in a statement to the Gazette. “He’s a socialist wannabe pretending to be an everyday guy, pushing higher taxes, more regulations, and open-border policies that hurt our economy and make our communities less safe.”
Voters first sent Fry, a former state House legislator, to Washington in 2022, after he ousted five-term incumbent Tom Rice in that year’s GOP primary.
Rice had angered many Republicans by voting to impeach President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, prompting a crowded field of Republican challengers. Trump endorsed Fry, who won a seven-way race with 51% of the vote, avoiding a runoff with Rice, who trailed by 26.5 percentage points, according to results from the state Election Commission.
In his November 2024 re-election contest, Fry received 65% of the vote, the most decisive win for the 7th District this century.
A Democrat last represented the 7th District in the early 1930s, when it dissolved with the state’s population loss. South Carolina re-gained a seventh congressional district with the 2010 census. Since voting maps were redrawn to add a district anchored by Horry County, Rice and Fry have been its only representatives.
The Grand Strand hasn’t been represented by a Democrat since the early 1990s, when it still was part of the 6th District.
“South Carolina — and the people of the 7th District — will reject the reckless agenda of Zohran Mamdani and his fanboy John Vincent, or whoever Democrats decide to install next,” Fry said in his statement to this outlet.
Vincent called the comparison to Mamdani a reach. “He is a very, very progressive guy; I’m a very moderate guy,” Vincent said of the Democrat recently elected mayor of New York City.
In his May 13 social media post to suspend his campaign, Vincent sounded dejected about his chances: “The door is not shut, but we can’t win without people who believe, and this district is not close today,” the post read.
Navy veteran hopes to be first Democrat this century to represent Grand Strand, Pee Dee in Congress
At the time, Vincent told the Gazette, he was disheartened by the lack of infrastructure for Democratic candidates in the district, and the roughly dozen volunteers working on his campaign all had very little political experience.
Days later, Vincent resumed posting about the race and criticizing Fry.
He hired JGS Strategies (JGS is short for Just Getting Started), a consulting firm that touts helping candidates win office in South Carolina and beyond since 2021. And he’s learned how to adapt his “off-the-cuff” public speaking style to politics, he said.
For example, he said, “I’ve learned jokes aren’t good.”
As of Sept. 30, Vincent had raised about $69,000 total for the campaign. After expenses, his campaign had just over $15,000 available when the third quarter ended, according to his latest filing with the Federal Election Commission.
By comparison, Fry had almost $762,000 cash on hand Sept. 30, according to his third-quarter filing.
