Stephen Goldfinch wants this race to be about one thing: that I used to be a Democrat.

He repeats it over and over because he does not want you looking at his record. He does not want you asking what kind of Republican he actually is. 

Even when I was a Democrat, I was more conservative than Stephen Goldfinch.

Goldfinch is a liberal lawyer-legislator. He represents everything that is wrong with the system in Columbia. He talks like a Republican when it is convenient, but his record shows something very different.

Start with judges.

Goldfinch has repeatedly backed liberal, pro-choice, activist judicial candidates. He supported former Democratic Representative James Smith for a judgeship, a hard core pro-choice lawyer legislator. When that nomination was challenged, Goldfinch was on the side trying to keep it alive.

He also supported the effort to elevate Milton Kimpson, the brother of liberal Senator Marlon Kimpson, to the bench. That is not about qualifications. That is about connections.

That is how the lawyer-legislator system works. They promote their friends, protect their network, and call it process.

Goldfinch has also supported DEI training standards for judges. That tells you exactly where he stands. Conservatives want judges who follow the Constitution and apply the law as written. Goldfinch supports injecting political ideology into the judiciary.

That is not conservatism. That is activism.

Then there is the question of experience.

Stephen Goldfinch has never prosecuted a case. He has never stood in a courtroom fighting for victims. The closest he has come to the inside of a courtroom was when he was federally indicted himself over a stem cell scam.

That is not the background of someone who should be the chief prosecutor of this state. This race is not about what party someone used to belong to. It is about who is actually willing to enforce the law and who is part of the system that has failed to do it.

Goldfinch is not an outsider. He is a product of that system. A lawyer-legislator who benefits from it and helps protect it.

That system has left South Carolina overtaxed, overlawyered, and falling behind other states that have enacted real conservative reforms. It has created a culture where insiders take care of insiders and where accountability is inconsistent.

Goldfinch is part of that culture.

I am not.

I led the Statehouse corruption probe that took down powerful politicians. I have put violent criminals on death row. I have taken positions that cost me politically because my values mattered more than party approval.

That is the difference in this race.

You can choose a liberal lawyer-legislator who talks like a conservative when it suits him.

Or you can choose a prosecutor who has actually done the work and is willing to take on the system that Goldfinch represents.

The truth about Stephen Goldfinch is not what he says. It is what he has done. It is what he is… a liberal lawyer legislator.