Meet the 10 Democrats who flipped Statehouse seats in SC

COLUMBIA — A former police officer under criminal investigation and a veteran who lost a special election earlier this year are among the state House’s 10 new Democrats.

In Tuesday’s midterm election, Democrats flipped 10 House seats, including six districts lost to Republican opponents over the past four years. The wins represented the best showing Democrats have had in recent memory and broke the House’s Republican supermajority.

Of the 10 winners, seven were Black and three were white, bolstering the numbers of the Legislative Black Caucus. GOP losses included the chamber’s only Black Republican, who two years ago defeated 20-year incumbent Rep. Joe Jefferson from rural Berkeley County.

He was among five Black Democrats in the House who lost over the last two election cycles in seats flipped back Tuesday by Black Democrats.

Many of Tuesday’s winners are newcomers to state politics. While four of the winners had run for Statehouse seats before, the rest had either never campaigned before or sought only local offices.

These are the 10 Democrats who flipped seats to join the 124-member chamber in January.

District 12

Jumelle Brooks ousted Rep. Daniel Gibson in the race to represent Greenwood and McCormick counties. Gibson lost by nearly 10 points, four years after defeating Anne Parks, a Black Democrat, from the seat she’d held for a quarter century.

Brooks, who lives in Greenwood, runs a home health care service for elderly adults in rural counties.

She ran for the same seat two years ago and lost by roughly 700 votes.

Her goals include bolstering renters’ rights by putting penalties on landlords that don’t clean up or repair properties, according to her campaign website. She also wants to work on closing gaps in how well students perform and improve working conditions for support staff in schools, such as bus drivers, custodians and substitute teachers.

And she hopes to introduce afterschool programs and job training programs in an effort to reduce violence among teenagers, according to her website.

“I truly hope the upcoming session does not get bogged down in unproductive hyper-partisan issues,” Brooks wrote on Facebook. “There are so many things, non-controversial items, that we can work on together so that all of South Carolina can benefit.”

District 57

Cynthia Ford defeated Lucas Atkinson in the district representing parts of Horry, Marion and Williamsburg counties. His ousting followed his decision to run as a Republican this year after a decade as a Democrat.

Ford is an Air Force veteran and former Marion County director for the Department of Juvenile Justice. She is a consultant, grant writer and author of multiple self-help books, according to her Facebook page.

Her priorities include creating jobs and housing in rural areas and improving access to rural health care, according to her campaign page.

“Throughout this campaign, I have listened to your concerns, heard your stories and witnessed firsthand the challenges and opportunities within our communities,” Ford wrote on her campaign page. “Those conversations will not end because the election is over. In many ways, our work is just beginning.”

District 64

In the district representing Clarendon and Sumter counties, Michele Demery defeated Rep. Fawn Pedalino by nearly 5 percentage points. Pedalino ousted then-Rep. Kimberly Johnson, a Black Democrat, in 2022.

Demery jumped into the race late. David Epperson, who initially filed to run against Pedalino, withdrew in April, less than a week after filing closed. The Democratic Party reopened filing for 48 hours, drawing three more candidates.

One was disqualified immediately. Demery, whose only foray into politics was an unsuccessful run for a county council seat earlier this year, easily won the primary with 66% of the vote.

Demery, a 51-year-old from Manning, teaches fifth grade in Berkeley County. This is her ninth year working in public schools. She’s taught various grade levels and special education classes, as well as worked as an instructional coach, a teacher mentor and an assistant principal, she told the SC Daily Gazette.

That experience means public education is a big priority for her, she said. She wants to take a closer look at the funding formula for public schools at a local level.

Rural areas like Clarendon County struggle to supplement state aid for public schools because they have few businesses paying property taxes, she said.

This school year, Clarendon County receives more than $10,200 per pupil in state funding, about $630 above the state average. But the county’s total revenue per pupil, when including local property taxes and federal aid, still falls about $3,500 below the average total for school districts statewide, according to data from the state Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office.

“Our local community doesn’t have the ability to provide funding to our public schools like they need,” Demery said.

District 66

Heather Hart, a writer with a master’s degree in the Biblical New Testament, was the only Democrat to defeat a member of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus on Tuesday.

Hart, who lives in Fort Mill, ousted freshman Rep. Jackie Terribile, a marketing consultant.

Hart had never run for election before, but she decided to challenge Terribile after seeing what she called “cruel and unhelpful policies” passed at the Statehouse.

Specifically, Hart opposes school vouchers. which allow families to use taxpayer dollars on education expenses including private school tuition, as undermining public schools. And people in the York County district, where students consistently outperform the rest of the state, care deeply about supporting their local K-12 schools, she told the Daily Gazette.

She also pointed to Terribile’s lack of support for funding local projects, which fell in line with the Freedom Caucus’ general opposition to budget earmarks. Cities in York County could have used some funding for needs such as better fire trucks, Hart said.

“There were some key votes from her I felt did not reflect the values of our community,” Hart said.

The 47-year-old wants legislators to reconsider how tax dollars fund schools and what she sees as an unfair burden on small businesses to pay school operating costs, she said.

“We can bring some fairness so our local small businesses have a chance to succeed,” she said.

Fort Mill, an affluent suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, is receiving about $8,700 in state aid per pupil this school year, or about $900 less than the state average, due to funding formulas that provide a greater share of aid to districts with less of a tax base, according to state fiscal data.

District 89

Joe Madge, an electrical engineer, had a narrow lead over newly minted House Majority Leader Micah Caskey, who has held the Lexington County seat for the past decade.

Because the vote tallies came within 1 percentage point, the race will go to an automatic recount. However, Caskey wrote on X he doesn’t expect the totals to change enough for him to claim victory.

Madge, who spent four years as chair of the Lexington County Democratic Party, plans to focus on lowering healthcare costs, strengthening public schools and “protecting personal freedom,” he said in a news release.

“The people of House District 89 have entrusted me with a great responsibility at a time of great change in South Carolina,” Madge said in the news release. “I am grateful for the opportunity to serve my neighbors in the West Columbia, Cayce and Springdale area.”

District 92

Byron Walters, a 52-year-old from Ladson, defeated two-term Rep. Brandon Cox in the Berkeley County district.

Walters, who runs Acme Lowcountry Kitchen on Isle of Palms, decided to run for office after getting a text message from Contest Every Race, a candidate recruitment group that seeks Democrats to challenge Republican incumbents, he told the Daily Gazette.

This was his first campaign. Along with better affordability for working class people, Walters wants to find ways to recruit more foster parents and help children who age out of the system.

Walters and his wife fostered 11 children between 2021 and 2024, all 5 years old or younger and all with complicated medical needs. They adopted two of those children, who are both in kindergarten now.

Because of that experience, Walters is aware of how difficult it is to find people willing to take on the challenge of helping children with medical needs and how many children turn 18 without finding a consistent foster family, sending them out into the world without much of a support network, he said.

“That is a real trauma situation for those kids,” Walters said.

Walters is also a Marine veteran and a retired member of the National Guard. Because of that, he wants to find ways to support veterans, he said.

District 98

Sonja Ogletree Satani of North Charleston lost to Rep. Greg Ford of Summerville by 21 votes in a special election in January to replace former Rep. Chris Murphy, a Republican, in the Dorchester County district.

Tuesday, Ogletree Satani defeated Ford by 9 percentage points.

Ogletree Satani is an Air Force veteran and a professor of business management at ECPI University, a private college in Lexington County. She also runs Corporate Cycle Consulting, a North Charleston-based business consulting firm.

Attracting new business to the area, funding public education and vocational training, and reducing homelessness and food insecurity were among Ogletree Satani’s biggest campaign priorities, according to her website.

“You trusted me with your vote, and I will never take that trust for granted,” Ogletree Satani wrote on Facebook. “I am ready to roll up my sleeves, get to work, listen to your concerns, and fight for the people of District 98.”

District 102

Montez Aiken, a former Summerville police officer, defeated Harriet Holman, a U.S. Army veteran, by nearly 15 points. She made history two years ago as the chamber’s first Black Republican female.

Aiken is under investigation by the Summerville Police Department and the State Law Enforcement Division over texts unearthed during the campaign. SLED confirmed the investigation in an email to the Daily Gazette but did not give any more information.

Text messages released by the Berkeley County and Dorchester County Republican parties show sexual messages sent during the 2023-24 school year to a then-18-year-old student at a high school where Aiken was a school resource officer. Aiken also worked with the Summerville Police Department for 23 years before retiring in 2025.

“The accusations against me are inflammatory and I take them seriously,” Aiken said in a statement Oct. 22. “I have consulted my attorney and have been advised to consider legal action if they continue.”

Aiken did not respond to a call or text message from the Daily Gazette requesting further comment.

Aiken’s campaign focused on affordability and support for public schools.

District 116

Clay Middleton ousted Rep. James Teeple, a Navy veteran who runs a childcare center, in the district that spans southern Charleston County, plus the town of Edisto Beach, which is in Colleton County.

Middleton, who is managing director at a public affairs firm and a lieutenant colonel with the Army National Guard, has run for mayor of Charleston and for a different Statehouse seat but never won.

His campaign focused on affordability and smart development in the fast-growing district, he told the Daily Gazette.

The 44-year-old plans to introduce legislation that would require developers to work with surrounding communities and make deals to pay the difference in property taxes for people on fixed incomes if property values start to rise.

His goal is to ensure the area has “smart growth, not reckless growth,” he said.

“We need to make sure the infrastructure is in place first before development begins,” he said.

Four years ago, Republican Matt Leber flipped the seat of rural, sea islands held by a Black Democrat since 1974. Teeple kept the seat red in an open contest two years ago, as Leber ran successfully for the state Senate.

District 122

Korey Williams, a Hampton County attorney, defeated Rep. Bill Hager, a retired engineer from Hampton, to represent parts of Hampton, Jasper, Colleton and Beaufort counties.

Hager flipped the seat in 2022 by defeating then-Rep. Shedron Williams, a Black Democrat who in 2018 ousted a white Democrat who’d held the seat for 20 years.

Williams’ top priorities included affordable healthcare, protecting vulnerable natural resources along the coast, and improving workforce training in public schools, according to his campaign website.

“We won this together and we will continue to work together to do what’s best for EVERYONE in the district,” Williams wrote on Facebook.