By admin 
South Carolina Superintendent Ellen Weaver retains a sizable cash advantage over Sylvia Wright in the state superintendent’s race, despite being outraised by her Democratic challenger for the second consecutive quarter, according to campaign finance reports filed with the South Carolina Ethics Commission.
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That’s because Weaver, who did not have a primary opponent, entered the race with money left over from her 2022 run and has spent significantly less than Wright, a former teacher and district curriculum coordinator, campaign finance reports show.
As of June 30, Weaver had nearly $72,000 in her campaign coffers while Wright’s campaign was more than $10,000 in the hole, according to financial disclosures.
Some of Wright’s filings were submitted with duplicate expenditures that inflate her spending and need to be amended, the candidate said. But even without the double charges, the Democrat’s campaign account is nearly tapped out.
In an interview with The State Media Co. on Friday, Wright acknowledged her campaign spent money as it came in during her primary race with Lisa Ellis, but said it would not continue that practice going forward.
“During the primary that was successful,” she said. “But we’re definitely not going to do that with the general election. We have a strategy to raise more funding and not just solely rely on grassroots contributions.”
Wright, a North Charleston native who most recently worked as a district coordinator in Dorchester School District 4, beat Ellis by 22 points in the June 9 primary.
In the coming months, she said her campaign would hold fundraising events with “well-known Democrats” in different congressional districts that should allow her to bring in more cash.
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As of June 30, Wright had raised nearly $190,000 from more than 2,000 individual donations this election cycle, an average of about $92 per donation.
Weaver, who set fundraising records four years ago when she brought in a half-million dollars by the end of the primary cycle, had raised $179,000 through the second quarter this time around.
Unlike Wright, who has relied on many small-dollar donations, Weaver has benefited from a relatively small number of large donations. The Republican’s average donation size this cycle is $767, or more than 8 times that of Wright, campaign filings show.
In a fundraising message Weaver sent donors last month, the state superintendent said they could not afford to become complacent.
“I’ve never believed in coasting, and I don’t intend to start now,” she wrote. “The same energy I pour into our education mission every day is the same energy I’ll bring to earning every possible vote this fall.”
When asked whether the schools chief felt compelled to step up her fundraising efforts in light of her opponent’s edge in contributions, a Weaver campaign official pointed to the Republican’s cash lead.
“Superintendent Weaver has seven times Sylvia Wright’s cash on hand, eight if you count Wright’s somehow negative $10,000 balance,” said Matt Moore, managing partner at First Tuesdays Strategies, which is running Weaver’s campaign. “Taxpayers should be terrified of electing someone so bad at math.”
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