Aiken Standard: Massey tops Hixon in runoff election

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Shane Massey has won the Senate District 25 Republican runoff against Bill Hixon with roughly 62 percent of the vote.
He is now left to square off against state Rep. Bill Clyburn in the Nov. 6 general election for the seat.

Numbers showed Massey pulling ahead early, and ultimately he garnered the most votes in each of the four counties comprising District 25 — Aiken, Edgefield, McCormick and Saluda counties. In both McCormick and Saluda counties, Massey was easily the majority vote leader, pulling in more than double the number of votes as Hixon.

In the entire district, Massey collected 3,281 votes to Hixon’s 1,988.

“It feels good. Honestly, I’m tired,” Massey said Tuesday. “We did a lot of hard work in each of the counties. We stayed focused on our message of ‘Shaking up Columbia,’ and I really think that resonated with people.”

Massey, 32, lives in Edgefield County but practices law in Aiken. He graduated from Clemson University in 1997 with a B.A. in chemistry and a minor in economics. After completing the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2000, Massey spent a year as a judicial clerk for Judge William Keesley of the 11th Judicial Circuit. He has been an associate attorney for Nance & McCants since 2001, specializing in civil defense litigation, including representation of physicians in medical malpractice lawsuits.

Hixon, who owns and operates an insurance and real estate company in North Augusta, said that naturally he was disappointed with the outcome but was not going underground just yet.

“Apparently it was not my time to be Senator,” Hixon, 50, said. “Let the Lord’s will be done. I don’t consider it a lost cause. I had a lot of fun and I met a lot of new people, made a lot of friends.”

He said he would “absolutely” run for an elected position again in the future. Supporters were gathered with Hixon Tuesday at a local pizza restaurant to wait out the election and were already prepping him to vie again for a political position.

“(My supporters were saying) that I kept a clean campaign,” Hixon added. “They were glad that I didn’t get into mudslinging.”
Despite his Tuesday victory, Massey can’t rest on his laurels just yet.

“You really can’t celebrate because you’ve got to hit the campaign trail tomorrow,” he said. “We’ve got another month to go of even more hard work.”

Even Gov. Mark Sanford was happy to hear of Massey’s win in the runoff.

“First off, I want to congratulate Massey for winning this hard-fought race,” Sanford wrote in a prepared statement. “When you look at what Massey ran on — the ideas of lower taxes, controlling government spending, a better business environment and a more accountable government structure — I think what this vote really boils down to is a continuation of a mandate for change in Columbia. Massey ran on an unabashedly pro-reform platform, something that there’s a clear need for in state government. I look forward to working with Massey as he heads into the general election.”

The Senate District 25 seat was vacated in July when former Sen. Tommy Moore resigned to take a job with the payday lending industry in Washington, D.C.

Posted October 3, 2007 

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