Longtime Democratic Solicitor David Pascoe speaks to reporters Thursday, April 10, 2025, after announcing at a Dorchester County GOP meeting that he’s switched to being a Republican. (Photo by Shaun Chornobroff/SC Daily Gazette)

SUMMERVILLE — A longtime Democratic solicitor announced he is switching to the Republican Party, which comes as he mulls a run for attorney general.

David Pascoe, the chief prosecutor for Calhoun, Dorchester and Orangeburg counties, told a crowd of around 60 people that he “can no longer in good conscience wear the label Democrat.”

 Longtime Democratic Solicitor David Pascoe announced at a Dorchester County GOP meeting Thursday, April, 10, 2025, that he switched to the Republican Party. (Photo by Shaun Chornobroff/SC Daily Gazette)

After his 10-plus minute speech that was preceded by praise from a Republican legislator, sheriff and another solicitor, Pascoe confirmed to reporters that he is contemplating a bid for attorney general.

“I’m strongly considering a run,” he said outside the Summerville Country Club. “Having seen what goes on in Columbia … and seeing what goes on there today motivates me.”

Pascoe is the first to publicly say he’s considering a bid for the statewide office expected to be wide open for the first time in 16 years.

South Carolina hasn’t elected a Democrat as the state’s chief prosecutor in 35 years. The last Democrat in the office, Travis Medlock, did not seek re-election in 1994 as he made an unsuccessful bid for governor. A Democrat hasn’t won any statewide office since 2006.

Republican Alan Wilson, first elected attorney general in 2010, has said he’s seriously considering a run for governor, meaning he’ll likely be vacating the seat.

Pascoe said Wilson’s decision will have no bearing on whether or not he runs to replace him.

“When I make a decision to do something, it’s never based on somebody else. It’s based on what I want,” he said.

Pascoe, first elected solicitor in 2004, has gained bipartisan respect over the last two decades.

In 2014, it was Wilson who handed Pascoe a case he expanded into the largest Statehouse corruption investigation since the FBI’s Operation Lost Trust. That 1990s case resulted in 27 convictions, including 17 legislators and seven lobbyists.

The probe broadened by Pascoe — despite Wilson’s attempt to fire him — ultimately brought down a GOP powerbroker and six Republican legislators, though only one went to prison as a result of Pascoe’s investigation.

Others resigned as part of plea deals, received probation and paid fines in the prosecution completed by another solicitor after the state Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that Pascoe had exceeded his authority.

“They violated our public trust,” Pascoe said Thursday. “They deserved to be removed from office and face the repercussions that they got.”

Pascoe said corruption and selfish representation continues at the Statehouse by legislators from both parties.

In explaining his decision to switch allegiances, Pascoe said being a Democrat hadn’t felt “like home” in a long time.

He didn’t desert the party; it deserted him, he told potential GOP primary voters at the Dorchester County Republican Party meeting.

Characterizing himself as a tough-on-crime prosecutor who supports Second Amendment gun rights and opposes abortion, Pascoe said he could no longer support a party that stood for the opposite.

Yet, Pascoe endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 and even made him the special guest at the solicitor’s annual oyster roast in January ahead of South Carolina’s presidential primary, which catapulted Biden’s bid to the White House.

When asked by reporters about that endorsement, Pascoe said Biden assured him ahead of time that he appreciated “hard-nosed prosecutors” like him. Pascoe says he later learned that was a false claim.

It was on Dec. 23 — when Biden commuted 37 federal death penalty sentences to life in prison — that Pascoe said he knew he needed to change his party allegiance. Pascoe noted the 37 included a North Carolina man who gunned down two women at a Conway bank in 2017.

“I cannot comprehend that kind of disregard towards victims to call them two days before Christmas to tell them the man who murdered their daughter, wife, sister in cold blood has had his sentence commuted,” Pascoe said.

He said he was urged to challenge Wilson in 2022, but a staffer with the Democratic Attorneys General Association made clear he would need to change his stances on abortion and the death penalty to get the group’s support. Pascoe refused. (Wilson faced no opposition on November 2022 ballots.)

“He assumed I would change my position because that’s what politicians often do to get elected,” Pascoe said. “I am not changing my principles for a party or a person. That’s not who I am.”

Pascoe won re-election last year after easily defeating a primary challenger.

He told the crowd he knew Democrats weren’t happy with him.

Minutes after his speech ended, state Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain released a statement alleging Pascoe switched solely to help his chances for attorney general in a state ruled by Republicans.

“Who are you fooling David? Do you think South Carolina Republicans are going to let a 20-year Democratic solicitor who suddenly has a change of heart be their nominee for attorney general?” the statement said.

“We trust his new political home will embrace his long-held Democratic values with the same enthusiasm — or at the very least, Google them,” she continued.

The statement ended by saying: “When the South Carolina GOP primary voters reject you in 2026, don’t expect the voters in Calhoun, Dorchester and Orangeburg to allow you to keep your job.”

Pascoe’s announcement came one day before one of the men he prosecuted and sent to South Carolina’s death row, Mikal Mahdi, is set to be executed by firing squad. In his speech, Pascoe talked about his decision to pursue the death penalty for Mahdi.

Mahdi pled guilty to a pair of 2004 killings that were part of a multi-state crime spree.

After stealing a car and a gun in Virginia, Mahdi shot Christopher Boggs, a gas station clerk, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He continued south, where he carjacked a man in Columbia before fleeing to Calhoun County.

There, he shot Orangeburg Public Safety officer James Myers with his own gun, then set his body on fire and stole his police car.

Pascoe said Thursday he was asked by media at the time if he would cut a deal that would avoid the death penalty.

“I told them that I will show the same mercy for Mr. Mahdi that he showed his victims. None,” Pascoe said.

Pascoe was praised Thursday by other Republicans for his record of seeking justice.

Rep. Joe White of Newberry County, Dorchester County Sheriff Sam Richardson, who Pascoe has previously endorsed, and Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, the chief prosecutor for Charleston and Berkeley counties, all said Pascoe embraces the values of the party.