The new congressman from the 4th District is Republican Trey Gowdy, who upset six-term GOP Rep. Bob Inglis in an early summer primary in 2010 and then went on to win the seat in the fall. Read More

The new congressman from the 4th District is Republican Trey Gowdy, who upset six-term GOP Rep. Bob Inglis in an early summer primary in 2010 and then went on to win the seat in the fall.

Gowdy grew up in Spartanburg, S.C., where he still lives with his wife, Terri, and their two children. His father grew up poor but worked to become the first in his family to finish college, and eventually to put himself through medical school and became a pediatrician. The family was well-off financially, but Trey Gowdy was encouraged to get jobs mowing lawns and bagging groceries. He got his first car from his father, who made him pay for it with his earnings. His academic performance in his younger years was “extraordinarily average,” Gowdy recalled in an interview with National Journal. But as a teenager, he was inspired by Ronald Reagan’s campaign for president and by a stint as a Senate page, sponsored by then-Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C. Gowdy fondly recalls bumping into then-Rep. Jack Kemp, R-N.Y., in a Capitol Hill elevator. Kemp, instrumental in enacting President Reagan’s tax cuts, complimented Gowdy on the “Reagan for President” button on his lapel. Gowdy buckled down to his studies and earned a law degree from the University of South Carolina. He also was fascinated by psychology and Greek history, and particularly liked to read about Spartan culture.

In 1994, Gowdy became a prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Greenville, where he worked on cases ranging from drug trafficking to murder. In 2000, he successfully ran for the county solicitor’s post and was re-elected twice. In that role, he sought the death penalty in seven cases and won them all. Much of the job was managerial, but Gowdy says he tried about half of the cases that came through his office himself, focusing his efforts on preventing violence against women and drunken driving. Gowdy, who named his dogs Judge and Jury, says that being a prosecutor was “the best job I will ever have in my life.”

He said he decided to challenge Inglis in the primary after the incumbent had tacked to the left on a number of issues. During the campaign, Gowdy portrayed his opponent as a Washington insider whose pragmatic positions on some issues were out of step with the district’s conservative voters. He criticized Inglis for earmarking funds in appropriations bills, for his opposition to President George W. Bush’s 2007 troop surge in Iraq, and for his stand against oil exploration in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Inglis complained that he felt as if he was running against the “sins of Congress,” rather than an individual. Gowdy finished ahead of Inglis in the initial balloting, and then soundly defeated him in a runoff, 71% to 29%. Inglis’ defeat in the early summer primary was one of the first concrete signs that the restless mood of voters in 2010 would spell serious trouble for incumbents that fall.

In the general election, Gowdy breezed past Democrat Paul Corden, a retired businessman and Vietnam veteran, in the conservative district, 63% to 29%. Gowdy said that his top priorities in Congress are entitlement reform that drastically reduces federal spending and repeal of President Barack Obama’s health care law of 2010.