LEXINGTON, S.C. — Katrina Shealy, the Republican who spent 12 years representing Lexington County in the state Senate, is backing Democrat Vincent Coe for South Carolina treasurer, setting aside party ties in a race against a fellow Republican.
Shealy made her case in a lengthy Facebook post on Thursday. Her target is Curtis Loftis, who has been treasurer since 2011 and is running again even though he told senators in 2024 that he would not seek another term.
She pointed to two problems from his tenure. One is the $1.8 billion accounting discrepancy, which she has long called a bookkeeping mistake rather than missing money, while arguing it should have surfaced much earlier. The other is a state inspector general report that found roughly $65 million in investment earnings had gone to the wrong state fund.
Shealy argued the job calls for real financial know-how, noting state law sets no such requirement and leaving it to voters to weigh. She cited Coe’s finance studies at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina along with the time he spent inspecting banks at both the Federal Reserve and the FDIC.
Her message to voters was to pick the candidate over the party label when they cast ballots for treasurer in November.
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