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Candidates › SC-07 race › 2025–2026
John Vincent
D Democratic nominee for U.S. House, SC-07
Has not served in Congress
- On the ballot
- On the general election ballotNov 3, 2026 · South Carolina US House 7
- Where to vote
- Find your polling place (opens in a new tab) · More ways to vote
- Top priorities
- End the War in Iran
- End the Trade Wars Making Life More Expensive
- Fully Fund Social Security
- Protect and Provide for Veterans
- Introduce Legislation to Address Healthcare and Deficit Spending
- Money
- $640.4K raised, $570.1K spent, $70.3K cash on hand (through Oct 14, 2026). Where it comes from
- Who gives
- 59% of individual money from donors at $200 or less · 86% from South Carolina · largest committee giver DEMOCRACY SUMMER LEADERSHIP PAC, $2K
- Backed by
- Congressman Jamie Raskin · Jaime Harrison · Marilyn Hemingway and 8 more. As the campaign lists them
44 priorities from vincentforcongress.com, in the order they are listed there. Every heading and the text under it is copied exactly, as one passage for each page it is from, and links to that place on the page; hover a source to see which passage it opens.
Work with all members of Congress to pass the War Powers Resolution so Congress can reel in this unconstitutional war
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Work with all members of Congress to end global tariffs.
These two unnecessary actions are fully supported by my opponent and have led to a crushing environment for farmers, small business owners, and the 99% of residents of the GREAT 8 not making so much money that none of this matters.
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Introduce legislation to remove the Social Security income cap. As of today, we have less than 6 years before we will be facing massive cuts to Social Security and then in turn, Medicare and Medicaid. Removing the income cap will add 30 years of solvency to Social Security.
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Push to ensure the Major Richard Star Act H.R. 2102, Caring for Survivors Act H.R. 680, and the Supporting Families in Need Act H.R. 585 are passed. This Representative will not give lip service to Veterans; he will champion Veterans.
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Put the final touches on two plans we have created and then introduce legislation: one, the ALL American Healthcare Act; the other, the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Stabilization Act. One will provide low-cost insurance for every American who chooses it, without eliminating private insurance and without adding one dollar to the debt. The other puts strict accountability measures in place through a 6-part plan to bring federal spending under control.
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South Carolina's public education system is in a state of chronic crisis — and the problem has been made demonstrably worse by a misguided, scandal-plagued school voucher program that drains hundreds of millions of dollars away from the children and communities who need public schools the most.
From crumbling, mold-infested school buildings in Horry and Marion counties, to poverty rates among students that dwarf the national average, to a state ranking of 41st in the nation for school quality, the evidence is clear: South Carolina's political leadership has failed its children. The voucher program, marketed as "school choice," has in practice become a vehicle for fraud, financial mismanagement, and the quiet dismantling of the public education system that 90% of South Carolina's children depend upon.
John Vincent believes, as his father demonstrated every single day — teaching in public schools during the day and working a second job at a restaurant at night to give his five children advanced higher education — that public education is the foundation of the American promise. It is not a political football to be kicked around for ideological points or the enrichment of big-box electronics retailers. Education is the single most powerful tool a society has to lift families out of poverty, prepare workers for a changing economy, and give every child — regardless of their ZIP code — a shot at the future they deserve.
This backgrounder examines the history of the South Carolina voucher program, the philosophical and practical case against it, the scandals it has generated, the crisis in school facilities, the state's poor educational standing nationally, the record of incumbent Congressman Russell Fry, the vision of SC Superintendent candidate Sylvia Wright, and what John Vincent will do — from Washington, in active partnership with state leaders — to turn things around.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · vincentforcongress.com/education-policy-backgrounder
Before examining the specific evidence against voucher programs, it is worth pausing to address the deeper philosophical question: why should any of us — including those without children in public schools — invest in public education at all? The answer to that question is the foundation of everything that follows.
Education is not merely a service that parents purchase for their children. It is the foundation from which everything else in a functioning society happens. It is the bedrock upon which children grow up to become productive members of their communities — people who can advocate for themselves, contribute to the economy, participate in democracy, and strengthen the social fabric that holds us all together.
That is precisely why a free and fair public education was built into the very fabric of American government from the beginning. The founders understood that foundational knowledge — the ability to read, reason, and engage as citizens — is what would make the greater American community what it needs to be for all of us to thrive.
The "school choice" movement, at its philosophical core, rests on a fundamentally different premise: that education is a private consumer good, and that taxpayers should only fund the services they personally use. This is not a community mindset. It is not a "I am part of building something greater" mindset. And if we followed that logic to its conclusion, we would have to accept some deeply troubling implications.
Consider a single woman who buys her first home and has no children in the public school system. Under the school choice philosophy, why should she pay property taxes that fund public schools? She doesn't use them. She doesn't need them. By that logic, she should be exempt. But of course, we don't think that way — because we understand, instinctively, that the education of our neighbors' children is not someone else's problem. It is our shared investment in the community we all live in. The moment we abandon that principle, we create a gray area that does an extreme disservice to our children and to the very concept of community itself.
Public education is a community compact. It is the promise that every child born in this country — regardless of their parents' income, their ZIP code, their religion, or their family circumstances — will have access to a free, quality education. That promise is not conditional on whether your neighbors agree with your values, or whether your child's needs are convenient for a private institution to accommodate. It is unconditional. And it is worth defending.
John Vincent's father understood this. He taught in public schools because he believed in that compact — believed that the children in his classroom deserved the same dedication and investment as his own five children at home. That is the tradition John Vincent carries into this campaign, and it is the tradition he will carry into Congress.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · vincentforcongress.com/education-policy-backgrounder
The most fundamental justification for voucher programs is that they improve educational outcomes for students. The research says otherwise — often dramatically. Studies of long-running voucher programs in Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio, and Washington D.C. have consistently found that students who used vouchers to leave public schools performed worse than their peers who stayed. According to the ACLU of South Carolina, research by the National Coalition for Public Education found that in terms of learning loss in mathematics, the effect of some voucher programs has been worse than the effect of COVID-19 on student achievement.
The reasons are not hard to understand. Many schools that accept vouchers are what education researcher Josh Cowen has termed "sub-prime providers" — institutions that are propped up by voucher funding, often lack accreditation, and frequently close within a few years of opening, leaving students in educational limbo. A Brookings Institution analysis of D.C. voucher-recipient religious schools found that students received less instruction in reading and mathematics than their public school counterparts.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · vincentforcongress.com/education-policy-backgrounder
South Carolina's ESTF program provides $6,000 per student. But that $6,000 does not come from nowhere. It is drawn from the state's education budget — money that would otherwise flow to public school districts. Public schools have significant fixed costs: buildings must be heated, lit, and maintained whether they serve 500 students or 450. Buses must run. Special education programs must be staffed. Administrative systems cannot simply scale down by 10% when 10% of students leave.
The Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office in South Carolina estimated in 2021 that a universal school voucher program would cost the state $2.9 billion per year. Even the current limited program drains tens of millions of dollars from the public education budget while South Carolina already underfunds its own legally mandated public school financing obligations by approximately half a billion dollars annually. The districts most devastated by this gap are the rural, high-poverty counties of the Pee Dee and Grand Strand — the heart of SC's 7th Congressional District.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · vincentforcongress.com/education-policy-backgrounder
Voucher programs are marketed as lifelines for low-income families trapped in failing public schools. The data from states with established programs tells a very different story. In Florida, 69% of applicants to that state's expanded voucher program in 2023 were families already enrolled in private schools. In Arizona, 75% of voucher recipients had never been in public schools to begin with. The program does not lift children out of failing schools — it gives taxpayer subsidies to affluent families who were already paying private school tuition out of their own pockets. This is an enormous transfer of wealth from the public school system, which serves the poor, to private institutions, which primarily serve those who can already afford them.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · vincentforcongress.com/education-policy-backgrounder
Perhaps the most morally troubling aspect of voucher programs is their effect on students with disabilities. Because private schools are not bound by the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to the same degree as public schools, families who accept vouchers often must sign away their children's federally protected rights to individualized education plans and disability accommodations. A 2018 analysis in the American University Law Review found that vouchers were "effectively no real choice at all" for families of students with disabilities, setting back the educational rights of these children by decades in states where vouchers became widespread.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · vincentforcongress.com/education-policy-backgrounder
The voucher bills considered in South Carolina in 2023 and 2025 explicitly prohibited discrimination only on the basis of race, color, and national origin — conspicuously omitting sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, and pregnancy. More than 80% of the private schools that accepted voucher dollars in South Carolina's 2024-2025 program year offered faith-based instruction, and multiple approved voucher schools maintained explicit policies against LGBTQ students and staff. One approved school's handbook stated that students in same-sex relationships would not be accepted. Others had policies of expelling pregnant students. These are institutions that taxpayers — including LGBTQ South Carolinians and non-Christian South Carolinians — are being asked to fund with their tax dollars.
source ↗ (opens the page at this passage) · vincentforcongress.com/education-policy-backgrounder