South Carolina State Representative and Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. member Dr. Jermaine Johnson has officially entered the race to become the next governor of South Carolina, filing for the 2026 gubernatorial election on March 23, 2026.
Johnson, a Democrat who has represented District 52 in the South Carolina House of Representatives since 2020, was initiated into Phi Beta Sigma through the Lambda Psi Chapter at the College of Charleston in Fall 2005. According to his campaign biography, Johnson grew up facing poverty, gun violence, and homelessness before earning a full basketball scholarship to the College of Charleston, where he served as team captain and went on to play professionally in the NBA D-League and overseas.
After his basketball career, Johnson returned to South Carolina, earned a doctorate in Organizational Leadership, and founded the New Economic Beginnings Foundation, a nonprofit that connects youth and veterans with job training and employment resources. In 2020, he defeated a 22-year incumbent to win his House seat.
His policy platform includes expanding the share of working families who pay no state income tax, funding affordable housing, building rural hospitals, increasing investment in trade schools, passing hate crimes legislation, protecting reproductive rights, and legalizing medicinal cannabis. In the State House, he has passed legislation lowering the sales tax for seniors, expanding broadband access, and helping commission a monument to Civil War hero and congressman Robert Smalls on the State House grounds.
If elected, Johnson would become the first member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. to win a governorship in the continental United States. The fraternity has previously produced two governors: Dr. Melvin H. Evans, the first elected governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Sir Arleigh Winston Scott, who served as Governor General of Barbados from 1967 to 1976.
The South Carolina gubernatorial election will be held in November 2026.