Why Heather Bauer Won (When Everyone Else Lost)

For the second election in a row, state Rep. Heather Bauer (HD-75) was one of the few Democrats in South Carolina able to do the thing that matters: win a competitive race.¹ 

In 2022, Bauer shocked the state by unseating 10-year Republican incumbent, Kirkman Finlay, with an insurgent campaign that went all-in to convey one simple message to Columbia voters—Finlay voted to ban abortion. By a 235-vote margin, Bauer was the only Democrat that year to flip a seat from red to blue. This proved especially notable because SC House Democrats lost five seats that year, four of which were presumed to be “safe” due to their majority-black populations. 

This election proved similarly challenging for SC Democrats. The party lost four incumbent state senators, one incumbent house member and failed to reclaim any of the targeted majority-black seats lost in 2022.  

Finlay also sought to reclaim his seat, hoping a broader presidential electorate motivated to vote for Trump would replicate his narrow 2020 win when he fended off Rhodes Bailey by just 257 votes. To that end, Finlay and the state GOP mimicked Trump’s swing-state media by attacking Bauer on transgender issues, fentanyl trafficking, and immigration—issues of uncertain relevance to the district’s upper-middle-class neighborhoods 10 minutes east of downtown Columbia. 

But Bauer won convincingly—53.3% to 46.6%—with a 1,236-vote margin that more than quintupled her 2022 margin. Even more stunning is where Bauer found those votes. In reliably Democratic precincts with larger numbers of non-white voters, Bauer’s margins tracked the performance of the party’s nominee for the seat four years earlier. She won all but one of the district’s “swing” precincts. However, what gutted Finlay’s prospects and ran up the margin for Bauer was her ability to “cut” or limit losses in the district’s five blood-red precincts where she out-performed her 2022 margin and Bailey’s 2020 margin by three to eight percentage points. Put differently, Heather Bauer broadened her coalition in 2024 by winning center-right white voters, some of whom voted for Trump.  

Considering national headwinds, and long-term trends that have given SC Republicans all statewide offices and supermajorities in both legislative chambers, why did Heather Bauer win when everyone else lost? 

Determined to do something. 

The key to Bauer’s reelection was her ability to make an affirmative case for herself by finding ways to get things done. 

The issue that swept her into office was choice and reproductive freedom, but the 2022 election improved Republicans’ position in the lower chamber and provided sufficient political coercion to flip holdouts like Sen. Tom Davis (R-Beaufort) in support of an abortion ban. After passing the ban, Republicans sought to move beyond their unpopular abortion policy. Bauer helped pass a law to protect women from being prosecuted for miscarriages, but the House was otherwise moving on from her signature issue. So, what’s a freshman lawmaker supposed to do? 

Well, everything. As a freshman member of the minority party, Bauer booked a surprising series of legislative victories: creating the first-ever international trade commission, driving a Republican comptroller general from office for losing track of $3.5 Billion in public money, securing funds to revitalize a dilapidated in-district mall, and promoting outdoor sports for women and girls. Notably, this meant working with whoever would work with her. Sometimes, that was Republican leadership or even the so-called Freedom Caucus agitating against their own Republican Party from the far right. 

In short, Bauer scrapped for wins. Some were small, others larger, but they were all wins. Importantly, they were evidence she was determined to do something with the time she was given. If conventional wisdom might advise a freshman lawmaker to go slow, be patient, and learn the body before making a move, Bauer turned that on its head. Going slow would leave her and her constituents with nothing. By showing up every day like it might be her last, Bauer earned a record that justified a second term. 

No guts, no glory. 

During her two-year term, Bauer aggressively spent her political capital to zero to persuade the public and attempt to influence the debate on pressing issues. She published editorials on the most complicated policy issues like judicial reform, energy policy, and, Richland County School District One (Richland One) to keep constituents apprised of her thinking while looking to affect the outcome. 

This meant taking political risks—e.g., disagreeing with some House Democrats on judicial reform and bucking Republican leadership on a gas plant bill that would give a blank check to an out-of-state utility. Bauer found herself on the right side of both issues. A modest judicial reform was signed into law and the gas plant bill failed to pass. Neither outcome was assured, but what matters so often in politics was that Bauer was willing to get caught trying. 

Perhaps no issue came to define Bauer’s reelection campaign like her work to improve Richland One public schools that serve parents and children in District 75. Notably, this was an issue that found Bauer, not one she sought out. Still, constituents repeatedly sought her help because they believed she would act if asked, and she did.  

In October 2023, Bauer stood with teachers, parents, and children angered by Richland One’s mid-year teacher reassignments. That same month, she called for change and challenged district leadership over report card results showing 4 in 10 graduates were not ready for college or a career. In January 2024, Bauer called for the SC Office of the Inspector General to investigate Richland One’s $31 million early childhood learning center, which found the school district violated procurement and permitting laws and wasted taxpayer money. In September 2024, the SC Department of Agriculture was able to conduct a school-wide investigation into rodent activity at a middle school because of a temporary budget law Bauer inserted into the state budget.

While roundly praised by constituents and good government advocates, Bauer’s actions prompted backlash from some members of the majority-black school board and their Democratic allies who sought to deflect fact-based criticism with ad hominem attacks of racism and false claims that the reform movement was the product of the extreme group Moms for Liberty.

Where many Democrats have come to reflexively be cowed and slink away in response to such claims, Bauer was undeterred. As a pro-public education Democrat, Bauer understood she could not support public education but remain silent when so many Columbia children were failing to meet minimal standards. (Never mind the fact that the lion’s share of these at-risk children also happen to be black and brown.)

On Richland One, Finlay arrived too late. With the election just weeks away, Finlay convened a bizarre October 2024 press conference arguing the school district report cards were an “emergency” and demanding the school board meet immediately to address it. The stunt fell flat. Student scores were worse during Finlay’s tenure, but he never lifted a finger. He appeared wholly unaware that the school board didn’t need an emergency meeting—it was scheduled for its normal meeting later that week. However, the main reason Finlay failed to recapture concerned Richland One parents is that it was too late to persuade voters; Bauer had been doing the work for two years. Two days later, two reform commissioners on the Richland One school board endorsed Bauer. 

Other, less high-profile examples like local road improvements similarly sprung from showing up and talking to the district. On all these issues Bauer carved out largely pragmatic positions—what’s happening, how do we fix it? Some of her positions earned her a fight, but all of them told the same story: Bauer was fighting for the district. 

Money is the most important thing.

In Columbia political circles, Bauer is notorious for her relentless grassroots work knocking on doors. That reputation is well earned. She ran a great ground game in 2022, and a better one in 2024. She knocked on doors to check in with constituents throughout the legislative session. But while Bauer’s campaign knocked on thousands of doors and made tens of thousands of phone calls, the fact is, the most important work she did to bolster her reelection chances was her work raising money.  

Bauer raised more than $225,000 for her campaign. According to the 10-day pre-election reports filed by the candidates, Bauer outraised Finlay, a historically strong fundraiser with vast personal wealth on which he could also draw. Where state ethics laws limit contributions to legislative candidates to just $1,000 per individual or company, Bauer’s haul demonstrated broad strength in the district and beyond of small-dollar donors willing to fund her race and eclipsed by two and three times what some Democratic senators raised for the same election to run in vastly larger districts. 

Bauer’s money funded six weeks of direct communication with voters, including almost 1,400 gross rating points (GRP)² of television, cable, and OTT³ over four weeks. These resources allowed her to hit Finlay early to remind voters about his record and tell a positive story about her record. Finlay failed to adjust his own communications plan for the reality of early voting—the two-week period before Election Day when more than half of the district’s voters voted. Finlay’s digital communications and those paid for by the state GOP all started coming online late in Week Four (i.e., four weeks from Election Day). By then Bauer had already been on digital for two weeks and was up on broadcast television with a negative spot reminding voters why they fired Finlay. When Finlay finally put up an effective contrast TV spot, his paltry 187 GRP buy in Week 3, 132 GRP in Week 2, and 400 GRP in Week 1 was too little too late to persuade as voters that were heading to early voter day after day. 

Elections are about choices. 

A good campaign is built around one simple idea voters can remember.

In 2022, that idea was “Kirkman Finlay voted to ban abortion.” If you only knew one thing before going to the polls, that was the thing Bauer wanted you to know. In that race, Bauer herself took a back seat—she didn’t matter, she was simply the acceptable, available alternative for voters angry that their House member voted to strip women of their rights. Certainly, the fact that there was insufficient time or money for Bauer to tell a broader story in that race helped keep her campaign laser-focused on the only thing that mattered: Kirkman Finlay voted to ban abortion. Still, the decision to tailor literally every form of communication—TV, digital, mail, door hangers, social media, etc.—to communicate just this one (and only one) idea required a leap of faith (there was no money for polling) and discipline to resist the distraction of other issues. 

This year presented Bauer with a more complicated task—it was a referendum on her. Additionally, while her 2022 race went a long way to disabuse many so-called Finlay Democrats in the district of his reputation as a purported moderate, the presidential cycle would bring new voters into the electorate who never heard that message from Bauer. So, while it was important to remind voters why they fired Finlay, she also had to make an affirmative case for herself.

None of this lent itself to messaging around one issue or vote. Instead, Bauer’s communications conveyed a feeling about her and her brand of politics: she was fighting for you (and the other guy wasn’t). In her positive spot, “Working for You,” Bauer explains standing in front of the Statehouse, “I didn’t come here to make friends. I came to make this place work for you.” After ticking through the litany of accomplishments and policy fights voters hopefully remembered over the prior two years, the ad cuts back to Bauer: “Now, let’s get back to work.” 

“She will punch you in the face.” 

Bauer doesn’t do identitarian politics. Abortion rights is a fight for freedom from government control. Education reform in Richland One is a fight for accountability and equal opportunity for every child. In the swingiest of districts, black voters are a small but important constituency in HD-75; they are necessary but not sufficient to win. Everyone matters, so Bauer’s politics need to reach the broadest possible constituency. 

Heather Bauer won because she built a brand as a fighter for her district and did the work necessary to tell that story.  As former state Senator turned podcast host Vincent Sheheen recently explained, 

“So, I want to say this about Heather Bauer …, even maybe more Joel [Lourie] than the issues you talked about, I think it typified what voters wanted. They wanted strong, tough leaders. And Donald Trump portrays a strong tough leader. And guess what, Heather Bauer does too—she will punch you in the face. 

And I think what I heard Maayan [Schechter] describe the Trump-Bauer voter really was a person who wanted somebody strong out there representing them, and to Heather credit she is a strong person, she projects very strongly.”

Sheheen is exactly right. More than the issues, Bauer left voters with a feeling about who she was and what she was doing for them. No one item on the accomplishments list mattered so much that it was sufficient to re-elect her. Instead, it was the cumulative weight of her work and willingness to fight for it that conveyed the campaign’s message: she’s fighting for us.

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Chris Kenney is a lawyer in Columbia, South Carolina. He is a Bauer friend, donor, volunteer, and strategic advisor. Kenney worked in South Carolina politics from 2004-08, then returned to law school. Since he began practicing law in 2011, he has litigated redistricting and election disputes and contributed time and tens of thousands of dollars in support of Democratic candidates.

1. In a demographically and politically similar district, Rep. Spencer Wetmore (D-Charleston) won in 2022 with almost 54% of the vote and fended off a challenge this year with a 1,004-vote (52%) margin.

2. With 1,400 gross rating points, the average TV viewer will see the ad 14 times.

3. OTT or “over-the-top” consists of media delivered via the internet that can be accessed on mobile, tables, gaming consoles, and smart TVs.