Last night, Duke Buckner became the Republican nominee for South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District. In November, he’ll face Rep. Jim Clyburn, whose 32 years in the House have made him one of the most powerful Democrats in America. For Clyburn to lose would have national ramifications second only to Trump beating Biden—and Duke truly is the man who can make that happen.

Jim Clyburn has been in Congress since 1993 and is currently the Assistant Democrat Leader, second only to Hakeem Jeffries. He served the same function for eight years under Nancy Pelosi’s leadership. During Trump’s presidency, he was the House Majority Whip. He also served as the Chair of the House Democratic Caucus in the early 2000s. Clyburn is so powerful that it was he who saved Biden’s flailing campaign by convincing disaffected black Democrats to give Joe their votes during the 2020 election.

Given Clyburn’s political heft, one would think that his would be one of the most well-funded districts in America. The opposite is true. It’s the poorest in South Carolina despite being immediately adjacent to Charleston, a top tourist destination, and it’s one of the poorest in America. Everywhere one goes in Clyburn’s district, there’s crime and poverty, whether in semi-urban North Charleston (one of the most violent communities in America) or in the dying, rural inland areas that were once so obviously prosperous but now have empty Main Streets, shuttered factories, and the despair of chronic poverty.

Image from Duke Buckner’s campaign site.

While Clyburn’s district languishes, Clyburn works to fulfill Obama’s 2008 promise that the new Democrat party would “fundamentally transform[] the United States of America.” Clyburn has been an active part of that, following wherever the Democrat party goes.

While Clyburn once voted for the sanctity of traditional marriage, by Obama’s second term, he’d “evolved” just as Obama did, and was all-in on same-sex marriage.

The unions, especially the NEA, give Clyburn their highest marks.

Clyburn backs minimum wage increases despite endless evidence, most recently from California, that “the right minimum wage [is] $0.00.”

While Clyburn has been on the front line attacking those who questioned the 2020 election, he was an election denier himself in 2004. Naturally, he was against Bill Clinton’s impeachment and enthusiastically for both of Donald Trump’s impeachments.

Clyburn is a leftist’s leftist. His political home is D.C., not his district. If he’s elected again, he’ll be 84 years old when he takes the oath of office.

And then there’s Duke Buckner. I wrote about him at length here, so let me summarize: He’s had a lifetime of real-world jobs, whether as a minimum-wage employee, a teacher, a newspaper founder and owner, or an attorney. He loves God, family, and country. He does not believe that our skin color defines our destiny. He thinks that the government holds people back rather than letting them thrive, but he also knows that our tax dollars should be returned to us in the form of real (not “climate”) infrastructure improvements such as roads and streetlights.

Those are Duke’s values, but values don’t win elections; personalities do—and thankfully, Duke has oodles of personality. Duke is genuinely warm, speaking to people rather than past them (something many politicians do). He’s an organized thinker and a charismatic orator who doesn’t veer into demagoguery. Here’s the speech Duke gave last night when he was on the verge of winning the primary. (Don't let the commercials distract you.)

Duke’s election day event tells you something about the man. It took place in the charming Colleton Coffee in Walterboro, one of the 6th District’s inland towns. The crowd was truly diverse: young and old, black and white, reflecting South Carolina’s demographics.

I spoke with two young black men in attendance (both in their late 20s or early 30s) because I was curious what had brought them to the Republican party. One is an Army veteran who loves America and realizes that the black community’s woes are brought about by Big Government policies that make them dependent on the state and destroy their values. He said that people in his community are increasingly willing to listen to what he has to say.

The other young man came from and lives in one of North Charleston’s most violent communities. He wasn’t always a conservative but has begun to realize that the current system dehumanizes people—and dehumanized people are violent people. With his focus on individual responsibility and his growing appreciation for a father’s importance in his children’s lives, he’s beginning to understand that Republican policies are the best thing that can happen to black communities.

Duke can win this election. In 2022, when he first ran against Clyburn and had only $200,000 in the bank, Duke managed to get almost 38% of the vote. This time around, two of the three third-party candidates are challenging Clyburn from the left. The last third-party candidate is a libertarian, and libertarians aren’t having a good year.

Jim Clyburn has been riding high for a long time, but even Napoleon met his Waterloo. His district has nothing to show for his decades in D.C., and people are waking up to the fact that the Democrat party requires division, destruction, and poverty to survive. As Duke says, “America as we know it is on the ballot. The question you have to ask yourself is this: Do you want more of the same, or do you want better?”

This local election can strike a blow to the very heart of the Democrat party, making it almost as important as Trump’s campaign. However, Duke is running in an impoverished district, so he really needs your help. Please donate here.