The very day of the South Carolina primary, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) — who is not running for reelection — taunted his Senate colleagues for their reluctance to “poke the bear” and take more authority over tariffs. And in the House, moderate Republicans fell two signatures short in their efforts to use a procedure known as a discharge petition to force a debate on legislation to protect young undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country by their parents.<doc-sep>Sign Up For Newsletters Woman receives gift of motherhood after cancer diagnosis Stacey Abrams on writing herself into the story – and history Maya Angelou and Sally Ride to be honored on quarters Dancers seek to rid ballet performances of Asian stereotypes China's censors cut some new friends from the "Friends" reunion Lawmakers call for ambassador to protect Afghan women Boat carrying 20 overturns heading from Cuba to Florida SolarWinds hackers have launched new campaign, Microsoft says "3-martini lunch" tax break should be axed, lawmakers say Flying over Memorial Day? Expect long lines at airports Some great white sharks are getting closer to humans, videos show Be the first to know Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Not Now Turn On<doc-sep>MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. — Mark Sanford smiled. He shook hands, posed for photographs and drove himself around his district on Election Day. He ordered a chocolate milkshake. But all day, after all these years as a governor and a congressman, he seemed to know what might be coming: his first concession speech. So it came to be in a crowded restaurant here on Tuesday night, hours after he had been openly mocked by President Trump, then knocked aside by a rival who vowed a close alliance with the White House. Mr. Sanford, a politician first sent to Washington as an insurgent of one era, was toppled in a different moment by a different kind of renegade. “We are to cower before the people who elected us, and I get their verdict tonight,” Mr. Sanford said, reading from scribbled notes on a legal pad, as it became clear he would lose his House race against Katie Arrington in South Carolina’s Republican primary. Even for a politician accustomed to humiliations — his marital infidelity and ill-fated, infamous trip to the Appalachian Trail, which was actually Argentina, still proved ripe for jabs this campaign — Mr. Sanford’s political unraveling in South Carolina was a striking comedown that somehow seemed both impossible and inescapable.<doc-sep>The Democrats who might lead the House Pelosi: Tomorrow will be a new day in America LAS VEGAS, NV - OCTOBER 20: U.S. Rep. and U.S. Senate candidate Jacky Rosen (D-NV) speaks during a rally at the Culinary Workers Union Hall Local 226 featuring former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on October 20, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Early voting for the midterm elections in Nevada begins today. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) Hear from the Democrats who took back the House Democratic congressional candidate Ilhan Omar is greeted by her husband's mother after appearing at her midterm election night party in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. November 6, 2018. REUTERS/Eric Miller Meet the Republicans who held onto the Senate (2018) Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., speaks to supporters after she was declared the winner over former Gov. Phil Bredesen in their race for the U.S. Senate Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Franklin, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) (CNN) — Rep. Mark Sanford, a South Carolina Republican who’s a critic of President Donald Trump, will lose his GOP primary to his conservative challenger, state Rep. Katie Arrington, CNN projects. The outcome – one that national Republicans working on House races said as recently as Tuesday morning they did not anticipate – is another sign that GOP primary voters are rejecting lawmakers who break with Trump. Trump endorsed Arrington hours before the polls closed Tuesday in a tweet attacking Sanford for being “very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA.” Last week in Alabama, GOP Rep. Martha Roby – who had called on Trump to exit the 2016 race after the “Access Hollywood” tape became public – was held under 50% in her primary and forced into a runoff. On Tuesday night, Sanford told supporters gathered in Mount Pleasant, “I’ve always been a realist, and at this point, based on the numbers I see, I think that I’ll end up losing this election.” In his tweet, Trump referenced a 2009 scandal in which Sanford, then the governor, disappeared for several days. He first claimed he’d been “hiking the Appalachian Trail” but later admitted to an extramarital affair in Argentina. Trump tweeted: “Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina. I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!” Arrington also used the sex scandal in her campaign. In one ad, Arrington tied the two chief arguments against him – insufficient support for Trump and the scandal – together. “Mark Sanford and the career politicians cheated on us,” she said in one ad, complaining that Sanford makes it a habit to “go on CNN to bash President Trump.” “Bless his heart, but it’s time for Mark Sanford to take a hike – for real this time,” Arrington said in the ad. Sanford has at times criticized Trump and didn’t back off that criticism in debates with Arrington. His critiques of Trump have often focused on the President’s style. After the shooting at congressional Republicans’ baseball practice, Sanford on MSNBC said Trump is “partially to blame for demons that have been unleashed” in American politics. In 2017, Sanford told Politico that Trump had “fanned the flames of intolerance.” He also called it “befuddling” that with Trump “facts don’t matter.” Sanford addressed Trump’s tweet Tuesday night, saying it’s “fairly unusual” for a president to weigh in as Trump did and saying he’s “neither for nor against Trump,” but instead bases his decisions and comments on his political values. “It may cost me an election in this case but I stand by every one of those decisions to disagree with the president,” Sanford said. The race was perhaps the most closely watched matchup in Tuesday’s slate of primaries, which includes Virginia, Nevada and North Dakota choosing their Senate candidates and Maine for the first time trying – and voting on whether to keep – a new voting system in which voters rank their preferences, rather than only selecting one. Sanford, who has never lost a race before, is also the second incumbent House member to lose in a primary. Rep. Robert Pittenger was ousted in North Carolina last month. Advocate for Confederate symbols wins in Virginia Corey Stewart, the bombastic conservative who built his public image on championing Confederate symbols, will win the Republican Senate nomination in Virginia, CNN projects. Stewart, a member of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, defeated state House member Nick Freitas and minister E.W. Jackson in Tuesday’s primary. He will face Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, the party’s 2016 vice presidential nominee and a heavy favorite for re-election, in November’s midterm election. Tuesday’s House races CNN has also projected the primary winners in three House races where Democrats are hoping to unseat Republicans in the fall. In Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, Democrat and veteran Elaine Luria will face incumbent Republican Rep. Scott Taylor, also a veteran. Taylor, who has been critical of Trump in the past, overcame a primary challenge to win the nomination. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA operative, won her primary in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District to face incumbent Rep. David Brat in the fall. And in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, state Sen. Jennifer Wexton won the Democratic nomination to unseat Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, who also overcame a primary challenge. Comstock is seen as one of the most vulnerable Republican members of Congress in November. In South Carolina, Archie Parnell won the Democratic primary in the 5th District despite admitting to domestic abuse in the 1970s. Local, state and national Democrats have called on him to drop out of the race in the deep-red district and said they wouldn’t support him if he won. In Nevada, the parties will choose their nominees in two competitive open seats. In the 4th District, vacated by retiring Rep. Ruben Kihuen, Steven Horsford, a former congressman, will be the Democratic nominee. Another former congressman, Cresent Hardy, is the favorite to be the Republican in the race.<doc-sep>
“Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina,” the president said—a reference to the scandal that nearly led to Sanford’s impeachment as governor. “I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes.” Sanford had initially served eight years in the House before winning election as South Carolina governor in 2002. He rose to national stardom in his second term as a frugal and unrelenting spending hawk, drawing him mention as a possible 2008 running mate for Senator John McCain. But that stardom turned to infamy in 2009, when he disappeared from the state for a week, his whereabouts unknown. His spokesman initially said he was “hiking the Appalachian trail,” but it turned out the married governor was carrying on an affair in Buenos Aires. Sanford spent the rest of his tenure fighting calls for his resignation and impeachment proceedings in the state legislature. He escaped with a censure and left office at the end of his term in 2011. Two years later, he mounted an improbable comeback, winning his old House seat in a special election despite being abandoned by national Republicans in the closing days. Back in the House, Sanford seemed to pick up where he left off a decade earlier. He aligned with conservatives in the then-newly formed House Freedom Caucus, fought for lower spending, and didn’t always stick with the party leadership. Sanford was no leader of the Never Trump movement, but he was a rare House Republican willing to criticize the president without apparent concern for the political consequences. He bemoaned the “cult of personality” surrounding Trump and his misunderstanding of the Constitution, and he joined Democrats in calling for Trump to release his tax returns. Unlike many GOP lawmakers, when reporters would ask his opinion of the latest Trump controversy, tweet, or proposal that flouted conservative principles—such as tariffs—he wasn’t shy about breaking with the president. Sanford knew early on that his differences with the president might be his undoing, but after his unlikely political resurrection, he didn’t much care. “I’m a dead man walking,” the congressman told Politico’s Tim Alberta in 2017. “If you’ve already been dead, you don’t fear it as much. I’ve been dead politically.” And in losing on Tuesday night, he evinced no regrets: “It may have cost me an election,” Sanford told his supporters, “but I stand by every one of those decisions to disagree with the president because I didn’t think they would be concurrent with the promises I made when I first ran for office and for the very voices of the people of the 1st District that I represent.” Trump’s Election Day endorsement of Arrington probably came too late to swing many votes. But because she only cleared the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff by a couple hundred votes, it’s possible the presidential tweet made a difference. True to form, Trump took credit anyway. “My political representatives didn’t want me to get involved in the Mark Sanford primary thinking that Sanford would easily win—but with a few hours left I felt that Katie was such a good candidate, and Sanford was so bad, I had to give it a shot,” he tweeted on Wednesday morning. “Congrats to Katie Arrington!” Arrington will now face Democrat Joe Cunningham in a district Trump carried by 13 points in 2016. “We are the party of Donald J. Trump,” she said as she claimed victory on Tuesday night. Given the result, it was a statement with which even Sanford, the defeated incumbent, could not disagree.