Mallory Dittmer’s Case for Putting Humanity Back Into Politics
By Javar Juarez | New Progressive Journal | September 16, 2026
The congressional candidate connects her approach to voters with a larger argument about public schools, affordability, childcare and a government that responds to everyday needs.
FAIRFIELD COUNTY, S.C. — The volunteers had not arrived yet. Mallory Dittmer’s husband had dropped her off at a festival, and she was setting up her campaign booth alone when a man sitting in front of it began asking questions.
“What are you running for?”
“What are you running as?”
Dittmer told him she was running as a Democrat.
What followed, she later told an audience in Fairfield County, was a stream of comments she described as hateful and untrue.
The man kept his back toward her.
She said he would not look at her.
For a moment, Dittmer did not know what to do.
“Sir, I’m sorry. This is my space,” she recalled telling him. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave because I’ve never been so disrespected in my life.”
He left. About five minutes later, another man approached and began looking over her campaign materials.
“So, what party you running for?”
Again, she answered Democrat.
“Now, why in the hell would you do that?” she recalled him asking.
Dittmer tried to explain. He would not let her finish, she said.
This time, she stopped the exchange.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to stop right there. You have no idea who I am.”
She told him she lived in York County, too. She was a mother of young children, running because she believed they deserved better.
“I have never been more disrespected in my life than by you and that man over there in the last 10 minutes,” she recalled saying.
“This is exactly why I’m running. We can’t even talk to each other anymore,” she recalled telling him, shaking and trying to hold back tears.
According to Dittmer, his demeanor softened. He apologized and walked away.
About an hour and a half later, he returned, extending his hand with a $100 bill to contribute to her campaign.
“It’s really that important to me that you know how sorry I am,” she recalled him saying.
Reflecting on what had reached him, Dittmer returned to a word that runs through her account of campaigning.
“I showed him my humanity,” she said. “I showed him my humanity in politics that has become so inhumane.”
The encounter captured a central theme of her campaign for South Carolina’s Fifth Congressional District: giving people a chance to see beyond a party label.
She connected that approach to the concerns she hears from families—childcare costs, affordable housing and the future of public schools—and the importance of being present to hear them.
Showing up across a 10-county district
Former state education superintendent Jim Rex, who introduced Dittmer, made in-person representation a central issue.
He questioned how often U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman had appeared in Fairfield County.
Dittmer argued that residents needed a representative more present in their communities and more attentive to their concerns.
South Carolina’s Fifth Congressional District spans all or part of 10 counties: Cherokee, Chester, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lancaster, Lee, Union and York in their entirety, plus portions of Spartanburg and Sumter. Those are the communities Norman currently represents and where Dittmer is seeking support.
Rex cited the campaign’s reported 25,000-plus doors knocked and described volunteers drawn from Democratic, Republican and independent backgrounds.
He presented that organizing effort as evidence of her approach to building relationships with voters.
He also placed the election within South Carolina’s political history.
Elected superintendent in 2006, Rex remains the last Democrat elected to statewide office in South Carolina. Twenty years later, he urged attendees to vote, speak with neighbors and colleagues, and support candidates’ organizing efforts.
Voters, he argued, should judge prospective representatives by their past behavior.
Affordability, from the household budget to the negotiating table
“The cost of living is out of control,” Dittmer said.
She identified affordability, healthcare and public education as central campaign concerns, describing their consequences in household terms.
Dittmer recalled the relief her family felt when her daughter entered kindergarten and daycare was no longer a major expense. She also described speaking with a mother who wanted to earn additional income but struggled to make childcare costs fit the household budget.
Housing presented a related problem. Dittmer praised Fairfield’s teacher housing initiative and said young educators struggled to find affordable homes in Fort Mill and the surrounding area she calls home. She connected those costs to schools’ ability to recruit and retain teachers.
Her published economic platform calls for incentives and tax credits to expand affordable housing, improved access to childcare, a higher federal minimum wage and measures addressing grocery and utility costs. It also proposes protecting consumers from additional energy costs associated with AI data centers.
Those priorities invite comparison with federal decisions affecting household expenses. On July 3, 2025, Norman voted for final House passage of H.R. 1, commonly called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. House voting record
The law accelerated the expiration of federal incentives for household energy investments. The residential clean-energy credit, which covered 30% of qualifying costs for improvements such as solar installations, ended for installations completed after December 31, 2025.
The energy-efficient home improvement credit also ended for property placed in service after that date, removing assistance eligible homeowners could previously use to offset upfront costs. IRS guidance
Healthcare is another part of Dittmer’s affordability agenda. She proposes lowering premiums, prescription drug prices and out-of-pocket expenses, protecting Medicaid, improving the Affordable Care Act, reforming insurance preauthorization and preserving rural hospitals.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that H.R. 1 would reduce federal Medicaid spending by $911 billion over 2025–2034 compared with its previous baseline. Its Medicaid changes were projected to increase the uninsured population by 7.5 million in 2034 nationwide. KFF’s analysis of CBO estimates
Dittmer’s November opponent, Republican state Sen. Wes Climer, has opposed expanding Medicaid in South Carolina.
In April 2024, he co-sponsored an amendment to remove consideration of Medicaid expansion from a proposed healthcare study. Senators rejected that effort 34–10.
Climer argued that expansion would increase dependence on government rather than encourage employment and private health insurance.
On housing, however, H.R. 1 included a provision consistent with Dittmer’s proposed approach: it expanded the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, which helps finance affordable rental housing. Her platform likewise calls for tax incentives to increase affordable housing. IRS guidance
A separate bipartisan effort to expand housing supply encountered a different obstacle.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, developed under Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott of South Carolina, sought to reduce barriers to construction.
On June 24, Trump canceled its planned signing, demanding that Congress first pass the SAVE America Act, an election measure. The housing legislation became law in July without his signature.
Together, the bipartisan agreement and the dispute over signing it illustrate the legislative negotiations a future representative would face in pursuing housing affordability.
From education advocacy to the State House
Dittmer traced her public education advocacy to organizing that began after she worked on a campaign in 2022. She joined other women in York County to explain school board decisions and state legislation, encourage parents and students to write lawmakers, and attend hearings involving proposals to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion.
The debate reaches beyond race alone. Women, including white women, have benefited from affirmative-action policies addressing employment discrimination. Those policies are distinct from the broader range of programs described as DEI, but their history helps explain why debates about access and opportunity also involve gender.
Dittmer recognized state Rep. Annie McDaniel, recalling that she had been present when McDaniel challenged an anti-DEI provision during House budget deliberations.
On March 11, 2025, McDaniel raised a procedural objection to proviso 117.195, arguing that it did not belong in the appropriations bill. Acting Speaker Davey Hiott upheld the objection, ruling that the measure’s principal effect was to eliminate DEI programs in state agencies and higher education institutions and that it violated House budget rules. House journal
Dittmer said McDaniel’s persistence inspired her, connecting the work inside the chamber to the organizing of parents, students and advocates outside it.
Public schools and the voucher debate
Dittmer described accepting an invitation to speak with 14 Republican men, despite being warned that she was entering the “lion’s den.”
They challenged her, she said. Eventually, she asked what they thought about private school vouchers.
One supporter explained that he wanted children to have access to the schools they needed. Dittmer began with their shared concern: children should receive a good education regardless of where they live. She then challenged whether vouchers were the best way to deliver it.
“I truly believe public education is one of our great unifiers,” she said.
Her husband teaches in public school, and her children attend public school. Her argument focuses on what happens to students who remain in those classrooms while lawmakers expand publicly supported alternatives.
State records establish the pace of that expansion. South Carolina’s Education Scholarship Trust Fund began with capacity for 5,000 students receiving $6,000 each in 2024–25. The Department of Education announced that the program reached 10,000 students, with $7,500 scholarships, for 2025–26. Its program page says applications for 2026–27 closed after reaching 15,000 students—three times the original first-year capacity.
Eligibility has broadened as well. State law raises the household income ceiling from 300% of federal poverty guidelines in 2025–26 to 500% in 2026–27, expanding the program’s reach beyond its initial eligibility limits. State law
Supporters describe that growth as evidence of families seeking educational options.
The Department of Education promotes the scholarships as a way for parents to customize their children’s education, with approved uses including private school tuition, tutoring, therapies and out-of-district public school expenses.
Dittmer’s question is what that expansion means for the public institutions serving the children who remain.
CUBN examined the dispute in its September 2024 report, “High Court Stops South Carolina’s Plan to Privatize Public Education and Target Teachers.” The coverage traced the voucher debate alongside the broader movement toward education privatization and reported the South Carolina Supreme Court’s 3–2 decision blocking private school tuition payments under the original law. CUBN’s report
Lawmakers subsequently revised the program. Gov. Henry McMaster signed Act 11 on May 7, 2025, restoring private school tuition eligibility through a structure that included lottery funding. Act 11
The state’s first-year report also documents problems with eligibility administration.
The Department of Education said 1,229 students were initially counted both as public school students and ESTF recipients. Following review, 1,005 were removed from ESTF rolls, while 224 had their scholarship participation restored because their public school enrollment records were incorrect.
The agency said its checks recovered approximately $1.8 million in unspent allocations. It separately reported $63,670 spent by 82 accounts subsequently suspended for ineligibility. ESTF report
Dittmer’s broader argument concerns priorities: the resources and legislative attention devoted to expanding vouchers while public schools continue to face unmet needs.
Teacher staffing provides one measure. The Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement reported approximately 706 vacant teaching and school-service positions at the beginning of 2025–26, based on responses from 74 of 75 districts. That was a 32% decrease from the previous year—a substantial improvement that still left hundreds of positions unfilled. CERRA’s 2025–26 report
When childcare assistance falls short
A recent childcare center visit brought Dittmer’s affordability concerns into focus.
A room built for 24 three-year-olds had only five children, she said. Providers told her enrollment had fallen after families lost assistance.
State records document funding pressures on that assistance. The Department of Social Services paused new childcare scholarship applications for most families beginning December 1, 2025, with exceptions for protected categories.
In an April 2026 explanation, the agency said the pause covered new and renewal applications, citing high demand and insufficient funding. The program served more than 22,000 children in February 2026 alone. Childcare scholarship program; April funding update
These scholarships are separate from the K–12 voucher program.
Their role in Dittmer’s argument is straightforward: parents’ ability to earn a living depends partly on whether they can obtain care for their children.
McDaniel reinforced that concern during her remarks. She described contacting DSS after learning about problems with ABC childcare vouchers and challenging the explanation she received about temporary federal COVID funding.
Her account underscored the consequences Dittmer described: a funding problem in government becomes an immediate problem for a parent, a child and a childcare provider.
Representation that reaches across boundaries
Dittmer acknowledged that the state legislature controls many of the education funding decisions she had discussed. She nevertheless promised to work with McDaniel and other officials, arguing that the division between Washington and Columbia should not become a reason to disengage.
“Anything I can do to use the influence of the office to make lives better and easier down here in South Carolina,” she said, “you absolutely believe that’s what I’m going to do.”
Her participation in state politics has included opposing restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion and challenging this year’s congressional redistricting effort.
In May, House Republicans advanced a map intended to give their party an opportunity to win the state’s only Democratic-held congressional seat, represented by Jim Clyburn.
The proposal would also have divided York County, Dittmer’s home turf, and shifted communities between districts ahead of the election.
Dittmer opposed the changes and testified before the House Constitutional Laws subcommittee—an appearance Democratic state Rep. Spencer Wetmore later praised in endorsing her candidacy.
Dittmer argued that splitting York County would weaken the federal influence of communities facing shared growth pressures and confuse voters.
Republican state Sen. Michael Johnson (Lancaster & York Counties) also raised concerns about separating communities with common infrastructure needs.
The dispute reached beyond party affiliation to how those communities would be represented.
The Senate halted the effort on May 26, as early in-person voting began, leaving the existing congressional districts in place.
McDaniel expressed the obligation that comes with representing those communities:
“Regardless of what your party is, once you win, you are the elected official for everyone.”
Dittmer is asking voters to judge her promise of accessibility against that record of participation—from education hearings to the redistricting debate.
Before winning a seat in Congress, she has already stood before lawmakers making decisions about South Carolinians’ schools and their representation.
Javar Juarez is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Urban Broadcast Network (CUBN), an independent investigative news outlet based in Columbia, South Carolina, and a member of the South Carolina Press Association. He is also President of the Capital City Chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.
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