The South Carolina gubernatorial election will take place on Nov. 3, 2026. Mullins McLeod is one of two declared candidates for the Democratic primary, alongside State Representative Jermaine Johnson, and the first Democrat to declare. He is running against notable Republican House members Ralph Norman and Nikki Haley, among others. McLeod specifically wanted The Paladin to interview him and turned down interview requests from major news outlets to do so.

Carter Ozburn: I was really pleased that you came and wanted The Paladin to interview you. Why specifically did you want The Paladin to interview you, as opposed to other kinds of news outlets. There’s tons of news out there. Why us?

Mullins McLeod: Because y’all are important. You’ll graduate in a year, and y’all have a vested interest in this thing known as South Carolina, and y’all are just as important as any other generation. It’s a good argument to make y’all more important because y’all are getting ready to enter this real world. In this real world, it’s either gonna be a broken, corrupt system that causes economic harm, upheaval and makes it harder to get ahead and get by, or it’s going to be the opposite of that, where you’ve got servant leadership. That’s why I’m running for governor, so your government doesn’t cause direct economic harm to you.

CO: You mentioned servant leadership. What does that look like to you? Walk me through that.

MM: Politicians are, by their nature, corrupt. But not all people elected to office are politicians. There are some servant leaders. What we’ve got in Columbia now is primarily politicians, and in South Carolina, you really have three classes in politics. There’s a political class, there’s a donor class and then there’s the rest of the suite of people. Politicians run around the state with their hand out to the donor class, and the for-profits are raising money so they can get elected to office. And in order to stay in office, the politicians keep their hand out to this donor class and they’re beholden to it. When you do that, the will of the people does not get served. The wills and the desires of these large for-profits get served.

I’m very different. I’m a natural-born servant leader. I have been blessed in the private sector. I’ve had a very successful, 25-year career trying cases all over our state, and really, I think I’m the most uniquely qualified person to be our state’s next governor at this point in history. Because we’ve got to clean up this corruption. A servant leader does the people’s bidding all day, every day and twice on Sunday.

So one thing that I’m doing is, to the extent possible, I’m trying to self-finance [my campaign]. You know, real leadership is sacrifice, and so I’ve spent real money out of my own pocket, and I’m gonna continue to spend real money out of my own pocket. It doesn’t benefit me when I spend my own money, but it benefits the people of South Carolina. The way I was raised, to whom much is given, much is expected in return. If you can help, you should help. And if I don’t self-finance, then what happens? I have to be like every other politician with my hand out, and I don’t want to be governor. I don’t want to be beholden to anybody but the people of South Carolina.

CO: Outside of your servant leadership, what are some of the policies in your own platform that you are most proud about, or do you think will be most beneficial to South Carolina?

MM: There are a lot. I went to Wofford, and my mother took out student loans, and that’s how I was able to afford to go to Wofford. It’s one of the reasons why no matter where I go in my life, no matter what I do, I never lose focus of my responsibility. I enjoy being a good son to my mother. But there are a lot of people that have student loans, and they don’t have parents that can pay the student loan. Kids are trying to get ahead, and they’re being harmed by this debt that they have to take home in order to get ahead. So one thing I want to do is make it so that when you get employed, if you have student loan debt, your employer can get a tax credit for paying off your student loans.

For every dollar they pay down your student loan, they get a tax credit so that you can pass that burden off to your employer. So for example, when you first enter the workforce, you want to be thinking about your 401(k), but what you really think about is a deck of student loans that’s on your back. You want to get a student loan off your back before you even think about retirement. And so that’s a common sense type of solution that you don’t hear anybody in Columbia talking about.

Student loans are a problem across all socioeconomic backgrounds, and it affects everybody. It’s got a chokehold on people when they’re first trying to get on their feet. I mean, one of the guys that works in my campaign, he’s 40 years old, he still has student loans because he went back and went to law school. And student loan companies have really done a number on innocent people. There’s a lot of fraud and corruption, and he deals with it every day. He’s a successful guy that owns his own company, got a lovely wife, and he’s still dealing with that monkey on his back. People shouldn’t have to live like that, you know?

CO: I feel like now, more than ever, our country is so polarized. What importance do you attach to bipartisanship and how we work to achieve it in the state legislature?

MM: That’s a good question. You’re right, it has become so toxic. The system is so poisoned, and that’s all by design. In 2010, the US Supreme Court passed the case Citizens United, and it’s the law of the land, so we have to respect it. But in my humble opinion, they basically legalized bribery. So now, these large for-profits can channel unlimited money into campaigns without disclosing where the money comes from, as long as they don’t coordinate with the campaign. And so all this toxicity you see in the system is all driven by all that money and all that greed. Politicians are fine with dividing us because that’s how they take power from us. So my campaign is very different. I’m not going to sling mud, I’m going to speak truth to power. I’m going to run the most substantive, factual campaign in our state’s history, and I’m going to get the people to hold hands, because when we hold hands, that’s how you take all the power back.

CO: I’m from Nashville, Tenn., and, throughout my life, I’ve only known a low-ranking education system. I think we’re 49th or something out of the 50 states. It’s the same kind of quandary here in South Carolina. How will you help South Carolina teachers and schools, and how will you benefit the education system?

MM: The first day we announced my campaign, I had my entire platform on my website. What most of these politicians do is they announce their campaign, and then you google them to find a website, and all you see is a donation page. They don’t even know what they’re running for. When I’m governor, we’re gonna pay our public school teachers between $80,000-100,000 a year. Our school teachers are woefully underpaid and have to reach in their own pockets to pay for school supplies. My mother taught public school. If you invest in your teachers, the education in South Carolina will improve.

CO: You’re a father of four. You mentioned that you have three children under the age of eight. How has having a family changed your view on politics?

MM: Have you ever noticed that when someone runs for office, they say, “I’m running for my children,” and they make it all about them? You ever notice that? It’s because they don’t really know why they’re running, and some political consultant told them, “You’ve got to have a reason to run.” I’m not running for my children, my children will be okay. I’m running for other people’s children who are not going to be okay. My entire campaign is about other people. It’s not about me. It’s like with my clients. I tell every client, “It is your life. It is your life, and it’s your money.” I work for you, and it would be no different if I’m elected governor of South Carolina. I work for the people, period. I belong to them. I don’t have any power. The only power I have is theirs, and it’s my responsibility to use that power for their benefit and their benefit only, not my personal benefit.

​​Personally, I also think people are so far removed from faith-based principles, in my case, too far removed from God, and I think it’s a real problem. In the public sector, we are so far removed from faith-based principles that it’s really causing a problem. The separation of church and state is very much the way government should be run, but that doesn’t mean that the government should not adhere to some golden rules. You can’t lie, you can’t cheat, you can’t steal and you have to be completely transparent in the way that you conduct people’s business. You have to be a financial steward of every single dollar that the state government collects, and you have to use it for the public good and public benefit. But that’s not what’s happening, and that’s because corruption has no conscience.

On Thursday, May 16, Mullins McLeod was arrested in Charleston, SC for public disorderly conduct. McLeod was reportedly walking along the battery in his underwear and shoes yelling expletives about his political opponents. McLeod was released the next day, alongside a revealing video of himself in the back of a police car. Since the video’s release, he has been asked by the South Carolina Democratic Party to drop out of the race but has refused.

CO: You were arrested a while ago, and you released a statement back in August. How has your mindset shifted since your arrest? How specifically has your perspective changed?

MM: There are certain things I can’t talk about. My obligation to the voters is to tell them exactly what happened with a long way to go from the polls, so they can make an informed decision at the ballot box. I will be able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these officers committed a felony act by taking my freedom in violation of my God-given, constitutional rights less than two blocks from my home. When I’m able to finally tell my story about what happened to me that night, it’s going to be a powerful story. This thing called freedom is real. If I’m not free, you’re not free, and that’s a real problem. It hasn’t been fun, but I’m a big boy, and I’ve been training for a long time to handle this pressure. That’s what leadership is all about.

The city offered me a deal the week after they took my freedom. They basically would dismiss the charge in exchange for me dropping out. It’s like some type of conditional dismissal. So most people would say, “I think I’ll do that and not run for governor.” That’s not what I did. I ran knowing that videos would come out. Because the way you stand up for your rights is when you stand up for your neighbor’s rights when they’ve been violated. So how can the public trust me to stand up for their rights as governor if I won’t stand up for my own right to freedom? This political class have been kicking me while they think I’m down. Folks, I’m not down. I’m staying on both feet. In fact, I’m staying on the balls of both feet, and I’m ready to go.

CO: I think another concern many have about your campaign is your defense of the Second Amendment. Many people are growing more wary of defending the Second Amendment with the rise of political violence and school shootings. I definitely want to hear your thoughts on that.

MM: When it comes to background checks and gun violence, I know an awful lot about the subject matter. I spent five years of my life being lead counsel on behalf of three parishioners that were killed in the Mother of Emanuel by a white supremacist. I brought suit against the FBI, the first case of its kind in US history. It resulted in a very large settlement, and so I know the subject matter inside and out. Here’s the problem.

Right now, you can go to these gun sales and these expos, and there’s no background check, and that has to change in order to buy a firearm. Everybody should have a background check. There should be no way to purchase a firearm in America without a background check. That’s the problem.

We’ve got to get rid of gun violence, okay? What happened in the Mother of Emmanuel litigation was Dylan Roof went to purchase a firearm. Any purchaser either gets a green light, a red light or a delay at the point of sale. So he got a delay, and the FBI examiner was then required to get an arrest record, which the Director Comey admitted after the fact, would have disqualified him for purchasing that firearm.

So the FBI did not do that which they were required to do. You don’t need a new law. They just have to do what they’re already required to do. The way you prevent gun violence is you prevent certain persons from having access to a firearm, one of which is a drug user. That was a disqualifier for Dylan Roof.

CO: What do you wish people knew about you that doesn’t come across in your interviews or your website? What would you want to say to everyone very directly?

MM: To make a difference in this world, there are times when you have to have an exaggerated sense of self worth. But if you take yourself too seriously, that can be a real problem. If you ask my friends, they’ll tell you that I do all kinds of stupid stuff. I’m not a perfect person, and I don’t pretend to be perfect. I think I’m the perfectly imperfect person that God made me to be. And that’s the beauty of an honest campaign.

Because none of us are perfect, and I don’t know why these politicians try to paint this picture of this perfect life when you know that they’re not. Why not just be honest and transparent with people and have a real, honest conversation about how we can move our state forward? I’m a good listener. I make a living speaking, but I’m a good listener. What makes me good at communicating is listening. God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason.

My life has been a real blessing. I live my life for an audience of one, and that’s God. And if you rely on yourself for your strength, you can make it through this life. But there’s an easier way, and that’s to rely on God for your strength. It really changes everything. There’s nothing like getting to know yourself through reading the Bible. And so anyway, that’s something that probably a lot of people don’t know because I’m a pretty private person.

CO: Thank you so much, I so appreciate you speaking with us!

MM: Yes, absolutely. Thank you as well.