Now that primary elections are completed, the biggest loser can be identified as Mark Lazarus in his bid to regain the post of Horry County Council Chairman.
Lazarus went into this campaign absolutely certain that his defeat by incumbent Chairman Johnny Gardner in 2018 was an aberration and that he would without question win a rematch this year.
Lazarus had a funding edge of approximately 10 to 1 over Gardner when donations to his campaign and the three PACs who sent mailers or paid for television ads to support his candidacy are totaled.
A funding edge of 10 to 1 should be enough to win any race. But it wasn’t, mainly because Lazarus could not escape the load of baggage he carried with him from his five and one-half years as county chairman from 2013-2018.
Lazarus could not escape the fact that he called the county first responders “Thugs” four years ago. He couldn’t escape his tight ties with the local cabal, his willingness to spend local government revenue on Interstate 73 construction instead of local road improvements and the anything goes development atmosphere that was pervasive throughout the county during his time as chairman.
And the Lazarus campaign strategy of attempting to rewrite his history as chairman, then going negative on Gardner was awful. Blame that on his campaign consultant Walter Whetsell and his Starboard Communications.

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