COLOMBIA – Lin Wood, the lawyer who defended unsubstantiated allegations of fraud in support of President Donald Trump after the 2020 election, is running for president of the Republican Party of South Carolina against a incumbent who has already obtained Trump’s endorsement.
Wood’s decision, confirmed in a March 29 email to the Post and Courier, came just a few months after he moved from neighboring Georgia to Palmetto state. Wood is now registered to vote for Beaufort County.
“My decision to run for office was strongly influenced by my well-known desire to reform local and state political parties and return power to the people,” said Wood. “Here, I want to give South Carolina Republican Party power and control back to party members.”
Wood will challenge incumbent President Drew McKissick, whom Trump endorsed with a handwritten note in February. The president is elected at the party’s state convention, which is scheduled for May, and counties will hold local conventions throughout April.
“You have my total and total endorsement,” wrote Trump in the short note to McKissick. “Good work!”
In a statement responding to Wood’s announcement, McKissick said, “Any Republican in South Carolina has the right to run for president and I welcome the challenge.”
“In the past four years, we have brought to our party a record number of new conservative patriots who want to make a difference, and the result has been the biggest growth and electoral success in the history of SC GOP,” said McKissick, who has led the state party since 2017.
Despite Trump’s national defeat for Democrat Joe Biden, South Carolina Republicans are emerging from one of their best electoral cycles in the party’s history.
In addition to the double-digit victory in the re-election of US Senator Lindsey Graham, the party also regained a seat in the Lowcountry Congress that it lost in 2018 and expanded its majorities in the state House and Senate.
The Republican Party’s greater control over the state allowed the party to pass a strict abortion ban earlier this session, after years of unsuccessful attempts. The measure is blocked in the Federal Court.
Wood first announced his intentions in a post at the end of March 28 on the Telegram messaging app, writing that several concerned “South Carolina Republicans who are conservative patriots approached me a few days ago to ask me if I just spoke the that I talked about or if I would take a walk. “
“They want to retake their Republican Party,” wrote Wood. “They want to give power back to the people – the party members. They have endured enough Rino (Republican in name only) Republicanism in the current leadership of the Republican Party of South Carolina. They are demanding change.”
The Georgia state bar is investigating complaints against Wood and has ordered him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, a request that Wood said he had refused, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, is also investigating whether Wood had already moved to South Carolina before the 2020 election and illegally voted in Georgia after that. Wood refuted these claims, telling CNN that he did not move to South Carolina until early February 2021.
Follow Jamie Lovegrove on Twitter @jslovegrove.