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U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, South Carolina’s longest-serving congressman, ended months of speculation about his future in Congress Thursday: He’s running again.
“I have served in public life all of my life,” Clyburn said as he made his announcement surrounded by Democratic legislators and party leaders at the state party headquarters in Columbia.
“Today I’m going answer a question that’s always asked: What is there unfinished, or what more do you need to do?,” Clyburn continued. The answer, he said, is “in the preamble of the Constitution: We exist in the pursuit of a more perfect union.”
Clyburn, who turns 86 in July, also addressed his age, saying: “I do believe I am very well equipped and healthy enough to move into the next term trying to do the things that are necessary to continue that pursuit of perfection.”
Clyburn, who has represented South Carolina’s 6th District for more than 33 years, has said over the past few months that he wasn’t sure he would run again, as several of his colleagues in Congress announced retirements.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, also 85, and Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, 86, are both retiring after this term. Concerns about former President Joe Biden’s age during his 2024 campaign for reelection — and the disastrous debate performance that forced him to withdraw from the race — have fueled calls among younger Democrats for their party to make room for a new generation of leaders.
Clyburn said he’d be “less than human” not to consider “all of the clamor about the change in leadership,” and he pointed out that like Pelosi and Hoyer, he has stepped down from a formal leadership role in the party. Clyburn has held various leadership positions over the years. When Pelosi led the caucus, he was the No. 3 Democrat in the House, and most recently he was the assistant Democratic leader to Hakeem Jeffries of New York, a position he stepped away from in 2024.
But Clyburn said polling and conversations with Democratic leaders and his constituents helped him decide he had more work left to do.
“People felt invested in me, they had voted for me, and I should not be listening to the Washington pundits when it comes to this,” he said.
And for those with any lingering age-related questions, he posed a question: “What would prefer to have — an older Thurgood Marshall or a younger Clarence Thomas?”
The perks of seniority
Clyburn joins seven other Democrats and five Republicans over 80 who have announced they’re running for reelection in 2026. Of the 24 members of Congress of any party who are 80 and older, only seven have announced plans to retire after this term.
Seniority in Congress comes with advantages. Clyburn is the longest-serving Democrat on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development, and would be chair if Democrats take back the House. As chair, he would oversee funding for agencies including the U.S. Department of Transportation.
That would position Clyburn to advocate for more transportation funding to repair bridges and fix potholes in South Carolina, said Jaime Harrison, who told the SC Daily Gazette ahead of Clyburn’s announcement that he should run again.
The federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics grades 80% of South Carolina’s roads as being in acceptable condition, putting South Carolina 31st in the nation, according to the National Safety Council.
“We desperately need him,” said Harrison, who lives in Columbia and formerly chaired the Democratic National Committee.
Harrison is among the many Democrats considered potential candidates in what is certain to be a crowded race to replace Clyburn, whenever he does decide to retire. Clyburn, however, has made clear he wants his daughter Jennifer Clyburn Reed to succeed him.
When that retirement might come is unclear. He said he looks forward to the day when he can “spend more time reading, writing and playing golf,” but when asked about another run in 2028, he didn’t rule it out but called it “an open question.”
Democrats won’t challenge him.
Clyburn is the most powerful Democrat in South Carolina, and Democrats eyeing a 2028 run seem already to be courting him. In 2020, his endorsement resuscitated Biden’s presidential campaign and helped him win the state’s Democratic primary decisively.
A safe Democratic seat
Clyburn’s closest campaign was his first: former House member and Sen. Frank Gilbert of Florence received 18% of the vote, coming in second to Clyburn’s 67% in a three-way 1992 Democratic primary.
South Carolina’s congressional map was redrawn after the 1990 census to create a majority-minority 6th District under a directive from the U.S. Department of Justice. After the 2020 census, the district’s lines were shifted to make the neighboring 1st District safer for Republicans.
The 6th District remains overwhelmingly Democratic. It spans 14 counties, extending from Columbia to the Charleston peninsula, and from the state’s southern border with Georgia east to the Pee Dee.
Members of the state House’s hardline Freedom Caucus have argued that South Carolina, which has a Republican supermajority in both chambers of the Legislature, shouldn’t have a district that’s been gerrymandered to be a safe seat for a Democrat.
Last month, a House Judiciary subcommittee considered but took no vote on a Freedom Caucus bill that would have would have drastically redrawn South Carolina’s congressional map. The proposal would’ve made the 6th District more competitive for Republicans but put large swaths of voters statewide in districts they’ve never been in.
With filing opening next week, no Democrat has announced they’re challenging Clyburn. According to his most recent filing, his campaign has $1.5 million in cash.
by Adrian Ashford, SC Daily Gazette
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: [email protected].
