House Speaker Mike Johnson is set to make a campaign stop in Goose Creek this Saturday, lending his national profile to a Get Out the Vote rally for South Carolina Republicans just days before voters decide the fate of the state's 1st Congressional District seat. The event is organized in support of Jenny Costa Honeycutt, the GOP candidate vying to replace U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace.
Johnson's attendance was confirmed Thursday, according to Live 5 News, which reported that the rally starts at 8:30 a.m. Saturday with doors opening at 8 a.m. The exact venue has not been made public — organizers say the location will be shared only with people who RSVP.
Costa Honeycutt's campaign also confirmed that Sen. Tim Scott and state Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver will appear alongside Johnson, according to the same report. Rounding out the guest list are four Republican nominees for statewide office: Attorney General Alan Wilson, running for governor; state Sen. Mike Reichenbach, running for lieutenant governor; David Stumbo, running for attorney general; and Cody Simpson, running for commissioner of agriculture.
A Race Tightening Toward Election Day
Costa Honeycutt is running against Democrat Nancy Lacore and Libertarian Bill Reeside for the seat currently held by Mace, per the same Live 5 News account. The general election falls on Nov. 3, as reported by ABC News 4, and South Carolina's early voting window runs from Oct. 19 through Oct. 31, according to WJCL. The Cook Political Report recently shifted the race rating to “Lean Republican,” per ABC News 4's coverage of the ratings change.
The nominees bring sharply different backgrounds to the open-seat contest. Costa Honeycutt is a Charleston County Council member, first elected in 2018, and runs a James Island law firm. Lacore is a retired Navy vice admiral who spent 35 years in the service and was chief of the Navy Reserve before moving to Mount Pleasant. Their biographies and the district’s long coastline are detailed in the statewide voter guide.
The 1st District stretches along the coast, including all of Beaufort and Berkeley counties and most of Charleston County. It has changed party hands twice in recent years: Democrat Joe Cunningham won it in 2018, and Republican Nancy Mace reclaimed it in 2020. Mace is running for governor rather than seeking another House term, leaving an open seat in a district the SC Daily Gazette identifies as the state’s most competitive congressional contest. The Cook Political Report’s rating has shifted from “solidly Republican” to “leans Republican.”
Earlier this month, Costa Honeycutt told WTOC that protecting her home and addressing affordability are what's driving her campaign. She pointed specifically to gas prices as a cost-of-living pressure point, saying, “suspending the gas tax, I'd love to see the federal government and I'd love to see the state government do that,” according to WTOC's interview with the candidate.
The candidates have also both addressed gas prices, but their economic arguments diverge elsewhere. Lacore supports temporarily suspending gas taxes, as does Costa Honeycutt, but says ending the war in Iran is key to lowering prices. Lacore argues tariffs raise the cost of everyday goods and should be repealed; Costa Honeycutt backs tariffs aimed at increasing U.S. manufacturing while saying uncertainty around changing tariffs has hurt the Lowcountry. The candidates’ positions were laid out in the SC Daily Gazette’s district guide.
Part of a Broader GOP Push
Saturday's Goose Creek event follows a similar get-out-the-vote rally in Okatie, where Republican candidates and supporters gathered the Friday before early voting opened, as reported by WJCL. That event was hosted by the Beaufort County Republican Party at the Okatie Ale House, and Costa Honeycutt spoke there alongside U.S. Senate candidate Darline Graham, according to the outlet's coverage.
Johnson's trip to South Carolina comes just days after he campaigned at an American Legion post in Linglestown, Pennsylvania, where he stumped for incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, as reported by PennLive. About 200 people attended that Oct. 28 rally, where Johnson argued that a vote for congressional Republicans amounted to a vote against what he called socialist “lunacy,” PennLive reported. He did not take questions from reporters after that speech, the outlet noted.
With early voting closing Saturday and Election Day arriving the following Tuesday, the Goose Creek rally marks one of the final high-profile pushes for Costa Honeycutt's campaign before South Carolina voters settle the 1st District race.
