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u/AlexTom33 6h ago
I lived in the town over from Abbeville for a while and this is a huge accomplishment. Congrats to Mayor Thomas!
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u/Ozcog 5h ago
Every single town turned is a massive victory. Every single MAGA town to turn and elect a person of color is a fuckin pendulum swing.
Wins like this are monumental to the cause of actual change in America. I'm excited to see more and more as we get closer to midterms.
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u/Zehnpae 2h ago
Democrats/Liberals have started taking politics seriously at all levels of government while Conservatives are only showing up for elections with Don's name on it.
I live in a small town that voted 54/46 for Trump and yet our last Mayoral election was between two dems because the conservative candidate couldn't even get enough signatures to get on the ballot.
It was so nice having an election where the big difference was one dude wanted to spend our budget surplus on making the downtown area more walkable, while the other wanted to update our parks.
Imagine if all elections were like that. I'd love if the difference between our choices for governor is one wants to spend money on commuter trains while the other wants to spend it on sidewalks.
Instead the conservative candidate wants to make it legal to poison Bald Eagles and yet somehow, it's a close race.
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u/Madaghmire 51m ago
That sounds amazing. I can barely fathom voting between the greater of two goods instead of the lesser of two evils
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u/AlexTom33 5h ago
Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more.
Helps my optimism be a tad less cautious.
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u/BettingOnSuccess 1h ago
Keep in mind, she didn't run as a democrat. She ran in a non-partisan race) and her first policies are pretty non-partisan too
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u/Level_Needleworker56 1h ago
having spent a significant amount of time there as a kid, I am happy for this seed of change.
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u/Other-Acanthisitta70 3m ago
Wait!! Not a socialist?????? /s Good thing since I’m guessing the good people of Abbeville wouldn’t be buying that.
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u/whydatyou 1h ago
winning a town of 4872 people with 3904 being of voting age and a total population comprised of 60.8 % "minority" races voted for her? you mean that Out of 600 total votes, Thomas received 412, compared to the 187 votes that councilman John Sutherland received. According to the election board, the voter turnout was 21.22%.? You mean they actually elected someone who has been on the town council since 2004? a town where she has lived for over 25 years? yeah. this is definitely a HUGE MONUMENTAL development. lol
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u/Blackbyrn 6h ago
That my mom’s hometown, love Abbeville. And Faye is good people known her my whole life. Not the first Black Mayor but still a landmark moment.
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u/fla_john 3h ago
Question: what are the congressional district borders like? I ask because the town might be* diluted by the surrounding area for the US House, and that's how presidential results are reported.
*might be, lol. Who am I kidding, this is South Carolina
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u/nomickti 3h ago
You can look on a precinct map, but can't see the town boundaries itself
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u/fla_john 1h ago
Yeah, that's what looks like happened. I compared the county to the city boundaries in Google maps, along with the precinct map.
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u/true_new_troll 2h ago
Holy crap, a good 1% of the people who ever lived in Abbeville are in this comment section.
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u/Outside-Affect-4722 6h ago
Congratulations to Faye Thomas, new Mayor of Abbeville, South Carolina 💐🇺🇸
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u/WuTang4thechildrn 6h ago
Democrats in the South need to duplicate her messaging
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u/Ambitious-Pirate-505 5h ago
What was her messaging?
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u/stein63 5h ago
She won on 20 years of local experience and practical issues like transportation, city services, communication, and accountability, not national Democratic politics.
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u/RecipeAsleep7087 4h ago
I sorta figured it was something like that. Given the location and voting history of the area, she was probably really fucking good at her job.
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u/exploding_cat_wizard 4h ago
Which is something Democrats need to copy with slightly different issues on state level. States control elections, gerrymandering, so much.
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u/Special_Ad_1802 6h ago
Abbeville has had KKK marches, so it's really impressive that she won. But its a very tiny town, and there's a lot of black people there, we should have been winning for years.
Some of the best food you'll ever have in your life is in Abbeville. Those Mennonites go crazy in the kitchen. Anybody from that Greenwood South Carolina area knows what I'm talking about.
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u/AlexTom33 5h ago
Yep. You are absolutely right. I am not from Greenwood but lived there for about 10-11 years before moving this year.
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u/mcfreeky8 26m ago
Yeah upstate SC is the most conservative by far. My hometown is similar in Abbeville in size but in the Midlands (my dad was the mayor) and our county has leaned Dem my entire life.
Good on Abbeville!
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u/kingston-twelve 5h ago
Hell yeah man. Flip every town, every city, every everything.
Just know the other side is getting more desperate and therefore more dangerous now. It's literally a cult, and they do anything for their god-king. Stay vigilant.
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u/CurryMustard 5h ago
I am once again reminding people to vote in all elections, dont let people tell you its rigged and pointless. We can win!
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u/RJFerret 4h ago
Especially local elections, as those typically are the ones running for higher offices later, stop them early so they aren't even contenders later!
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u/Spaceghost1589 4h ago
Less that 600 votes for both sides combined?
That's only about 16% of an estimated eligible voter population of ~3500 (pop. 4874).
Wild.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES 4h ago
Welcome to the world of local elections not held on election day. 16% is actually pretty good.
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u/nik-nak333 6h ago
Amazing news, especially since Abbeville is both the birthplace and the deathbed of the confederacy. May those old fuckers spin in their graves til the end of time.
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u/princess_peach_85 6h ago
Not for nothing.... She looks like a delight! Good job people! Keep voting in change!
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u/DevTheGray 5h ago
She has one of those smiles and kind eyes that make you want to get a big hug from her.
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u/cafebrands 6h ago
This is nice to see but aren't all mayoral races in SC non-partisan?
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u/Laringar 5h ago
Looks like it's only for cities over a certain size; in other words, cities that would already likely elect Democrats. Seems to me the law was passed to make it easier for Republicans to launder their populism in those places.
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u/LotusFlower1017 6h ago
Amazing to see! Sincerely hope to keep seeing more change like this - there can never be enough. 💜
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u/No_Problem5759 5h ago
Is this the aforementioned "Trump will destroy the republican party and we will deserve it"
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u/oldRoyalsleepy 5h ago
What's the population and what percent voter turnout in this race, just curious if it was high turnout too.
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u/EnlightenedNarwhal 4h ago
That's because people can't keep drinking MAGA brand kool-aid now that their teeth have started to rot. People can only ignore their health for so long before they realize they're leading themselves to a proverbial early grave. Let's keep pushing. Fuck DJT.
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u/rocket_randall 4h ago
To get to their current position of power the GOP spent ~30 years chasing every mayor/municipal race they could to create the base of power necessary to start shifting federal elections in their direction.
This is how you start to return power to all of the American people. Congrats mayor Thomas!
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u/RackemFrackem 3h ago
I am far less likely to believe that a district swung 37+ points in 2 years than I am to believe the 2024 election was stolen.
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u/JohnBrownOnDrugs 3h ago
What'd she run on? Is she actually good is is she just gender-bent Jim Clyburn?
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u/Independent-Catch-90 1h ago
I hate to say it but some of this is because the President’s cronies aren’t paying attention and trying to steal this race
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u/onlystupidreddit 52m ago
So these trump voters don't have a problem voting for a woman of color. Just a woman of color that would be terrible at doing the job she is running for. I'm glad this post is pointing that out. Trump voters aren't any more racist than democrats.
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u/Laringar 5h ago
This is hitting /all (that's how I found it), so watch out for crappy people.
And congrats to her! There are at least a few incumbent mayors here in NC that I hope are similarly upset.
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u/Lilfrankieeinstein 4h ago
Misleading.
The city of Abbeville is 50% black. She is the mayor of the city. Abbeville County is less than 24% black.
In 2024, Trump won Abbeville County. No exit polling was conducted to determine how well either candidate performed in the city.
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u/true_new_troll 1h ago
This was my impression when I saw there was an Abbeville County, but precinct data shows that the four precincts that include the city also went for Trump by a pretty significant margin. So the precincts that include at least part of the city voted for Trump.
With that being said, the precinct labeled "Abbeville No. 2" covers more of the residential part of Abbeville (the city) than any other precinct, and it voted 554 for Harris and 341 for Trump. So, yeah, the city itself might have voted for Harris. Too close to call based on the available data.
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u/whydatyou 1h ago
winning a town of 4872 people with 3904 being of voting age and a total population comprised of 60.8 % "minority" races voted for her? you mean that Out of 600 total votes, Thomas received 412, compared to the 187 votes that councilman John Sutherland received. According to the election board, the voter turnout was 21.22%.? You mean they actually elected someone who has been on the town council since 2004? a town where she has lived for over 25 years? yeah. this is definitely a HUGE statistical development. lol
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u/ateam1984 🖤 54m ago
Are you trolling here? You came to this sub to make a mockery of her and the story? Take that nonsense elsewhere please. Here in this community we celebrate and honor Black women. We celebrate and honor achievement. If you’re not into that then kindly step back out the door. We will be just fine here.
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