Thomas Ravenel, 'Southern Charm' star and former treasurer, says he'll run for SC governor

Thomas Ravenel, the former South Carolina state treasurer and reality TV star, is saying he plans to run for governor of South Carolina next year, elbowing his way into the statewide race by calling the cadre of current challengers "lightweights."

"I'm running for Governor of South Carolina and none of the lightweights currently in the race are going to stop me," he posted on social media late Feb. 6. "I have a message that’s going to change not just South Carolina but the entire country."

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Ravenel did not immediately return multiple requests for comment on Feb. 7, but he did pin his declaration to the top of his account on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

Earlier this month, Ravenel hinted about his aspirations online, writing on Feb. 1: "I'm thinking about getting back into politics" and specifically singling out the governor's race.

"We've had terrible leadership at the governor's position," Ravenel wrote in that post. "We're one of the least competitive states in the southeast based on our extremely high counterproductive income tax rates. Also, we tax cars and boats and boat motors and the costs to extract these taxes barely cover the revenue received."

Ravenel, 62, has been waiting a long time for the opportunity following his conviction in a federal cocaine case that was launched while he was the elected Republican state treasurer. He served 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to buying cocaine for himself and friends in 2007.

Ravenel defeated a nine-term incumbent to win the office in charge of the state's finances in 2006 but was only in office for about six months before he was indicted by authorities who'd been tracking his drug use and the reputed cocaine use in the bars, clubs and mansions of Charleston.

Soon after his conviction, Ravenel shared his hopes of one day returning to public office in an interview with The Post and Courier. He also twice ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate, first as a GOP candidate in 2004 and a decade later as an independent candidate in 2014.

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Filing for the gubernatorial race won't officially open for more than a year, but when it does it is expected to draw significant interest and competition.

It will also be the first time South Carolina has had an open governor's race since 2010 when 37-year-old Nikki Haley emerged victorious and made history when she was elected the state's first female governor.

Should Ravenel formally enter the race as a Republican (he calls himself a Libertarian in his social media profile), he is expected to square off against U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-Charleston, who is conducting her own bid and has already begun traveling the state to connect with Republican voters beyond the Lowcountry district that she has represented since 2020.

Like Ravenel, she too, waged an unsuccessful challenge against U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for his Senate seat in 2014. But she ran as a Republican, while Ravenel tried to unseat Graham as an independent candidate.

Other potential contenders in the 2026 governor's race include state Attorney General Alan Wilson and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, among others.

Ravenel is the son of the late S.C. congressman Arthur Ravenel Jr., also known as "Cousin Arthur," who spent some six decades of his life in public service and for whom Charleston's iconic cabled-stayed Ravenel Bridge is named.

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In recent years Ravenel, formerly of Charleston, has relocated to Aiken. In Charleston he was known for being a reality TV star featured in the first five seasons of Bravo's "Southern Charm."

In the wake of "Operation Lost Trust," the FBI's 1990 drug and bribery sting of the Statehouse, lawmakers drafted a constitutional amendment in 1996 that made felons and those convicted of election crimes ineligible for elected office for 15 years afterward — imposing a limit on how soon Ravenel could try to run for office again.