The 2020 presidential campaign of former
U.S. Representative
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...
and
South Carolina Governor
Mark Sanford began on September 8, 2019, when Sanford announced his intention to challenge incumbent President
Donald Trump for
the Republican nomination in
the 2020 election, and ended on November 12. Sanford planned on making the announcement in
South Carolina on September 2, but postponed due to
Hurricane Dorian. A formal announcement was made on September 8.
In September, Sanford made several campaign stops in his home state of South Carolina (including
Greenville,
Columbia
Columbia may refer to:
* Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America
Places North America Natural features
* Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...
, and
Mount Pleasant) wherein he "debated" with a
cardboard cutout
A standee is an American term for a large self-standing display promoting a movie, product or event, or point-of-sale advertising, often in the form of a life-size cut-out figure. They are typically made of foam-board, and may range from large ...
of Donald Trump. This was in reaction to the
South Carolina Republican Party's decision to forgo a Republican primary in that state. On September 19, Sanford held his first campaign stop in the early primary state of
New Hampshire. This was followed by a four-day swing through
Iowa that lasted through September 25.
On October 16, 2019, Sanford formally launched his campaign with a week-long, 3,500 mile road trip which started in Philadelphia. Only one person, a reporter from ''
The Philadelphia Inquirer'', showed up. The road trip was called "Kids, We’re Bankrupt and We Didn’t Even Know It," and saw Sanford holding a large check for "one trillion dollars" that he hoped would "spark a needed conversation" within the Republican Party about spending and debt.
After failing to gain traction in the race, Sanford ended his presidential bid on November 12. He blamed the ongoing
impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, saying that it "has made my goal of making the debt, deficit and spending issue a part of this presidential debate impossible right now ... nearly everything in Republican Party politics is currently viewed through the prism of impeachment."
References
{{2020 United States presidential election
2020 Republican Party (United States) presidential campaigns