Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Speaker of the House John Boehner, left, greets Peggy Sanford, right, mother of U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, second from right, Sanford's fiancee, Maria Belen Chapur, center, and members of Sanford's family before a ceremonial swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol May 15, 2013, in Washington, D.C.

Mark Sanford’s comeback story is complete.

The former South Carolina governor is now officially a congressman again, sworn in Wednesday on the House floor after winning last week’s competitive special election in the state's 1st District.

As Sanford took his official oath late Wednesday afternoon, he echoed the same themes of redemption he used in his winning campaign.

“I stand before you with a whole new appreciation for the God of second chances,” Sanford said.

The Republican’s return nearly 13 years after he left Capitol Hill is all the more remarkable for his having overcome the scandal that derailed his governorship.

In 2009, Sanford disappeared from the state, telling his office he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, only to reveal in a teary press conference that he had actually been having an affair in Argentina. Sanford and his wife divorced, and he is now engaged to that same Argentinian woman, Maria Belen Chapur.

After he left the governor’s office following his second term, Sanford's political career appeared to be finished.  But when Gov. Nikki Haley tapped Rep. Tim Scott to fill an open seat in the U.S. Senate, Sanford was presented with an opportunity to reclaim the district he once represented.

Sanford won the special election primary and runoff with relative ease, but soon news leaked that his ex-wife had accused him of trespassing at her home earlier this year. Many Republicans began to distance themselves from Sanford, and the National Republican Congressional Committee pulled funding from the race.

Sensing an opportunity, Democrats poured money into the race, hoping that Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, could pull the upset. Though polls showed the race was close, Sanford won by nine points on May 7.

But on Wednesday, as he began his first official day back on the Hill, Sanford said there were no hard feelings for House Republicans who spurned his campaign and said he'd been welcomed by the state's congressional delegation and by many current members, some of whom he had served with in his first stint.

Related:

• Once disgraced, Sanford victorious in SC special election
• Sanford challenges questions with spontaneous poll of women
• More on Mark Sanford

"If there's anybody who believes in putting the past behind them, it's me," a smiling Sanford told reporters outside his new congressional office before a noon lunch for supporters. In the afternoon, more than 50 supporters walked with him across Independence Avenue to the Capitol steps for a photo and filed into the gallery to watch his swearing-in at 5:30 p.m. on the House floor.

Chapur, his fiancée, was with him throughout Wednesday’s events. His two oldest sons were also present for his swearing-in, along with his mother, sister and brother-in-law and nephews.

Sanford said he and Chapur haven’t yet set a date for their wedding “that you know,” he joked with reporters.

The famously frugal governor, who slept in his office for his first six years in Congress, says he hasn’t decided whether he’ll bunk in his Cannon House office this time as he did before, but did laugh that he brought a futon with him.

Before his swearing-in, Sanford said he had to go through the same formalities any new member has to do, like getting his new member pin and congressional license plates.

“To a degree it’s deja vu; to a degree it’s a brand new experience,” said Sanford, noting the heightened security around the Capitol since the 1990s.

After being a chief executive for eight years, Sanford said he didn’t care whether he might experience some of the same frustrations with the slow legislative process many other former governors have. For Sanford, he’s just happy to be here, given the bumpy road that brought him back to D.C.

“Everybody travels their own path. Given the path I’ve traveled, it’s a chance to serve in the Congress of the most powerful country on Earth, to deal with financial issues that were really the reason I ran for office in the first place,” said Sanford. “It’s a chance to come back and work on the issues I’ve long cared about, long talked about, long been an advocate on.”

Democrats, however, weren't so ready to forgive and forget. Even though they may have lost the heavily Republican Charleston-based district that voted for Mitt Romney by 18 points last fall, they quickly worked to continue to hang Sanford’s scandals on him.

“Today when Mark Sanford raised his right hand, he became the newest face of a Republican Congress already struggling with women voters,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Emily Bittner. “Good luck with that.”

Voters in South Carolina’s first congressional district head to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to offer former Gov. Mark Sanford a chance at political redemption, or instead send the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert to Congress.

Sanford, the Republican former governor whose time in office ended in a scandal triggered by a nationally-publicized extramarital affair and subsequent divorce, is seeking to once again win the district that elected him to Congress for three terms. A special election was called for this solidly Republican seat following GOP Rep. Tim Scott’s resignation to become the state’s next senator.

Randall Hill / Reuters

Elizabeth Colbert Busch and Mark Sanford shake hands after the South Carolina 1st Congresional debate in Charleston on April 29, 2013.

But while Sanford entered the special election as a modest favorite, he’s run into stiff opposition from Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Clemson University administrator whose famous sibling has helped elevate what might otherwise be a mundane congressional race into a national media spectacle.

Democrats have rallied behind Colbert Busch, who has leaned on her relationships with members of the Charleston-area district during the campaign, and stressed her interest in partnering with businesses. Her experience, combined with Sanford’s personal baggage, has transformed the campaign into a competitive contest in a district where a Democrat hasn’t won since the early 1980s.

Sanford, in turn, has cast his Democratic challenger as a handmaiden of national Democrats, particularly House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a cardboard cutout of whom Sanford staged a debate with several weeks ago.

But the biggest unspoken variable in the campaign has undeniably been the affair that practically torpedoed Sanford’s political career, which, at the time, included presidential aspirations.

Sanford launched his campaign by acknowledging the mistakes he’d made in conducting an extramarital affair with Argentine woman Maria Belen Chapur (who is now Sanford’s fiancée). The affair was an undercurrent for much of this spring’s campaign until Jenny Sanford, the governor’s former wife, filed a lawsuit alleging Sanford of having trespassed on her property.

For his part, Sanford’s betting that stage of the campaign is behind him.

"I think that [voters] had largely moved past my personal life at the end of the runoff, because I would have never won that runoff if that was still the focus," Sanford told the Huffington Post. "I think that the whole trespassing, October surprise thing brought that all back into the forefront."

Nonetheless, the revelation shook up the campaign, prompting the National Republican Congressional Committee – the group charged with electing GOP-ers to the House – to withdraw its resources from the campaign. And Democrats, along with supportive super PACs, stepped forward to launch their own advertising blitz in support of Colbert Busch.

Those moves prompted speculation that Sanford’s bid at political redemption might come up short following today’s special election. But the former governor has sought to battle back in recent days by stampeding throughout the district (with a handful of national media members in tow) and hosting multiple events.

But Colbert Busch has also tried to sustain her momentum with the benefit of national Democrats working on her behalf, who are eager to peel a vote away from Republicans’ majority in the House.

This story was originally published on Tue May 7, 2013 5:09 AM EDT

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, bidding for political redemption in a congressional race after a high-profile divorce that seemingly ended his aspirations, sought to challenge the notion that he has a problem among women voters by spending part of a visit to a small shopping street looking for, as he put it, “a woman who hates me.”

The question of Sanford's ability to win women voters, first raised by his 2009 high-profile affair and divorce, re-emerged after a recent legal dispute with his ex-wife. He further complicated matters during a debate last week, saying he had not heard his opponent when she asked a question about the affair and his use of public funds surrounding the episode.

On Saturday, after answering several questions about whether he thought a trespassing charge at his ex-wife’s home might compromise his standing with female voters, Sanford led reporters on a foray in downtown Summerville, S.C., stopping women to ask them their opinion of him, specifically referring to the question posed by a reporter for NBC News.

“No group’s vote is a monolith,” Sanford said, pointing out that he had recently received an endorsement for Tuesday’s special election from a group of Republican women who took an ad out in a local newspaper.  Sanford is running against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch to fill the South Carolina congressional seat vacated by now-Sen. Tim Scott.

Sanford also noted that during his visit to the hot dog restaurant Perfectly Frank’s, where earlier that afternoon his campaign announced the endorsement of the Tea Party Express, patrons had not brought the issue up.

When the reporter noted that he was speaking to a crowd that included some people who had gone to the restaurant specifically for the campaign event, Sanford dismissed that context as “the case of any political venue." 

“If you’re a political figure, some people, because they hear you’re going to be at some place, they’re going to show up,” he said.

Sanford then walked across the street to begin his meet-and-greet, flanked by two campaign staffers and three reporters, telling the reporter who asked the questions about his status with women that he rejected the “premise” that women wouldn’t vote for him because of his personal life.

He then indicated he wanted to seek out women who “hated” him.

“Let’s go to this woman – does she look biased?” he asked as he crossed the street, the NBC reporter walking next to him. 

As a car whizzed by, he told the reporter, “Watch out, I don’t want you to get run over. Actually I kind of do, but that’s a different story.”

After Sanford caught up with the woman he had pointed out, she told him she was a big supporter and that she would be making phone calls for him on Tuesday.

A staffer, mimicking Sanford’s tongue-in-cheek approach, suggested that the woman had been planted.

A few shops down, he stopped in a women’s consignment store to chat with two shoppers who were visiting South Carolina from Arkansas, but who had seen some of his campaign ads and signs, which they said were “beautiful.”

“You look like you’re totally capable and we wish you luck,” one of the women told him.

Laughing, Sanford pointed to the two cameras in front of him, saying, “you hear that?”

Later, Sanford visited a women’s clothing store where the shopkeeper said she knew one of Sanford’s staffers, and that the staffer “knows I’m in your corner.”

“Oh good,” the former governor said. “[But] that defeats what I’m after.”

Pointing to the NBC reporter, he continued, “We were trying to find her a woman who hates me so she can use it in her TV show. She’s with NBC National.”

As Sanford wrapped up his hourlong canvas, he came across a couple, each of whom expressed their support for him.

After indicating, as he had previously, that the NBC reporter was looking to talk to women who didn’t support him because of his marital history, the woman, Patty Hulbard, responded, “I'm not your biggest fan. What you did I don't appreciate, but that should not influence my vote necessarily.”

 “You line up ideology with my thinking, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” she continued. 

“I appreciate that. Thank you,” Sanford said.

Turning to NBC’s camera, he pointed and said, “That’s pretty close to what you’re looking for. We’re getting somewhere, all right.” 

This story was originally published on Sun May 5, 2013 11:57 AM EDT

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is going up with a new TV ad hitting Republican Mark Sanford in South Carolina's special congressional election.

And the DCCC ad throws the kitchen sink at Sanford -- the affair with the Argentine mistress, misusing taxapayer money, the Appalachian Trail.

"Mark Sanford walked out on us," the advertisement goes, showing the image of someone hiking. It continues that Sanford "violated our trust, secretly used thousands of taxpayer dollars flying to Argentina -- and then lied about it."

"Now he wants our trust again? Maybe Mark Sanford should just keep walking."

The ad buy (April 19-28 at $205,000) is in the Charleston and Savannah markets, per the DCCC.

The ad comes as House Majority PAC, a Democratic Super PAC, is airing a similar TV advertisement against Sanford, while the former South Carolina governor is hitting Democratic nominee Elizabeth Colbert Busch with an ad tying to her to unions.

The general election is on May 7.

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who is running for his old congressional seat, responded to a complaint that he trespassed at the home of his ex-wife, Jenny Sanford, by saying that he simply was watching the Super Bowl with his son.

"It's an unfortunate reality that divorced couples sometimes have disagreements that spill over into family court. I did indeed watch the second half of the Super Bowl at the beach house with our 14 year old son, because as a father I didn't think he should watch it alone," Sanford said. "Given she was out of town I tried to reach her beforehand to tell her of the situation that had arisen, and met her at the back steps under the light of my cell phone when she returned and told her what had happened.

Sanford continued, "There is always another side to every story, and while I am particularly curious how records that were sealed to avoid the boys dealing with embarrassment are now somehow exposed less than three weeks before this election, I agree with Jenny that the media is no place to debate what is ultimately a family court matter, and out of respect for Jenny and the boys, I'm not going to have any further comment at this time."

According to the AP, Sanford is required to appear at a court hearing to answer the complaint on May 9, two days after the special election for South Carolina’s first congressional seat, featuring him and Democratic nominee Elizabeth Colbert Busch.

Sanford is also set to debate Colbert Busch on April 29 -- campaign spokesman Joel Sawyer said there are no plans to change his debate schedule.

*** UPDATE *** NBC News has obtained the complaint, filed with a Charleston County circuit court, charging that Sanford “entered into a pattern of entering onto [Jenny Sanford's] property” and that she had told him “on a number of occasions that this behavior is in violation” of their divorce court order. 

Here is a link to the complaint.

Democrats are relishing in a surprising opportunity to possibly pick up a House seat in a solidly Republican district in South Carolina, where Mark Sanford is hoping to stage a political comeback next month.

Sanford, the embattled former governor who left office in 2011 under a cloud of scandal following an extramarital affair that publicly wrecked his marriage, officially won the Republican nomination for the May 7 special election to fill the vacancy in South Carolina’s 1st congressional district. He beat rival Republican Curtis Bostic in a runoff election with about 57 percent of the vote.

Though Sanford represented this reliably GOP district for three terms in the 1990s, he faces a tougher-than-expected challenge from Democratic nominee Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, a Clemson University administrator and the sister of Comedy Central personality Stephen Colbert.

For Sanford, a onetime conservative rock star who had once flirted with the possibility of seeking the Republican presidential nomination, next month’s special election is a shot at redemption, both personal and political. His 2009 admission of an affair with an Argentinian woman, María Belén Chapur, and bizarre subsequent explanations of his absence to pursue that affair, nearly ruined his career and left a lasting negative impression with voters that could help Colbert-Busch score an unlikely victory.

An internal poll released by the Colbert-Busch campaign earlier this week showed the Democrat leading Sanford by three points – within the poll’s margin of error, but still noteworthy for its reflection of a competitive race in this district that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney won last fall by 18 points.

Sanford, speaking Wednesday on “Morning Joe,” argued that Colbert-Busch’s ability to skate to the Democratic nomination as he endured a competitive Republican primary, helped explain those numbers.

“I think that when people really begin to digest those ideas – some real strong contrasts in terms of where she would be versus where I would be – that's going to substantially change a poll that, right now, simply defines name ID as people know it, not issue ID,” he said. “And ultimately, I think debates and campaigns are ultimately decided on issues.”

Colbert-Busch benefits, too, from her brother’s celebrity and heightened media interest in the campaign. It’s for that reason that Republicans in Washington said Wednesday that they are watching the race closely, and refuse to take for granted a seat that Democrats haven’t held since 1981.

Both Republicans and Democrats generally admit that the race might not be as close if not for Sanford, and the baggage associated with his affair. But GOP sources also contend that Colbert-Busch has managed to escape most scrutiny, and that the district’s Republican-leaning voters will end up with Sanford once his Democratic opponent’s views are fully litigated over the course of the next month.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which is tasked with electing GOP candidates to the House, for instance on Wednesday chided Colbert-Busch for campaigning while continuing to remain on-staff at Clemson.

Bruce Smith / AP

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford leaves the voting booth after voting at his precinct in Charleston, S.C., on Tuesday, April 2, 2013.

“Why should South Carolina taxpayers have to foot the bill for Elizabeth Colbert Busch to campaign for Congress? We already knew Colbert Busch supported Obama and Pelosi’s big-spending policies, but now she’s taken her disregard for the taxpayers to a new low,” said NRCC spokeswoman Katie Prill.

(Clemson says the NRCC's characterization is incorrect, and that Colbert-Busch is not on the state payroll at the moment. Her annual leave, to which she is entitled, ended on March 26. "Elizabeth Colbert Busch is not on the state payroll in South Carolina. She took a leave of absence from her job at Clemson University the day she filed for office," said John Gouch, the school's assistant director of media relations.)

The ultimate test of both parties’ commitment might come in the form of a check cut by the NRCC or its Democratic counterpart, the DCCC. Both sides maintain that they have not yet decided whether to spend money on television ads in this coastal South Carolina district, which could help swing the race toward either candidate.

Meanwhile, Democrats are eager to have Sanford available as a public face of the GOP over the next month, if not more. South Carolina Democrats on Wednesday eagerly reminded reporters of the letter written by state Republican lawmakers (including now-U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R) to Sanford in 2009, which asked for his resignation (Sanford declined). The letter called Sanford’s actions during his affair an example of “poor decision making and questionable leadership.”

Sanford’s bid for a comeback also comes as Republicans nationally seek to overhaul their image, and broaden the GOP’s appeal among Hispanics, young voters and women – three groups among whom the party suffered during last fall’s election.

“The last thing they [Republicans] need is Mark Sanford to be their public face,” a Democratic campaign source said in anticipation of the bruising – and increasingly nationalized – campaign set to play out over the next few weeks.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 3, 2013 1:34 PM EDT

A House race pitting a liberal comedian’s sister against a strict, conservative opponent might seem like a strange place for a GOP donor to turn blue.

But at least 16 donors to Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the Democratic nominee for Congress in South Carolina’s 1^st congressional district, have also given recently to a Republican – in some cases, one of the 16 Republican candidates vying for their party’s nomination to challenge Colbert Busch in the May 7 general election.

But when asked why they decided to switch – or in some cases, straddle – sides this time, these donors spoke not of a sudden political conversion, but rather the desire to give a little help to their friend Lulu, as those who know Colbert Busch call her. 

Bruce Smith / AP

Elizabeth Colbert Bush, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, shares a laugh with reporters after voting in Mount Pleasant, S.C., on Tuesday, March 19, 2013.

The mantra “all politics is local” rings true for John LaVerne, the owner of Charleston’s Bulldog Tours, which offers ghost walks and culinary tours of the historic city. Usually a Republican voter, LaVerne gave his friend Colbert-Busch $250 after donating the same amount to Mitt Romney’s campaign in May 2012.

LaVerne said the Democratic nominee “blew me away” when they met three years ago, and he has been telling his Republican friends that “she’s the smartest candidate out there.”

Another connection: Colbert Busch’s daughter works for LaVerne as Bulldog’s operations manager.

“[Colbert Bush] raised her kids by herself, all three of them, and they’re all three phenomenal people,” he said. “That says a lot.”

Despite the attention to her candidacy aided by her brother’s celebrity, Colbert Busch is considered an underdog against either of her would-be Republican opponents, former Gov. Mark Sanford or Curtis Bostic. A runoff GOP primary will decide between Sanford and Bostic, but the district is solidly Republican.

Still, Colbert Busch can point to some of these crossover voters as evidence of the kind of bipartisan appeal she would need to win this special election to fill the former House seat of now-Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.

Thomas Doyle, the owner of Palmetto Carriage Works, feels the same way as LaVerne about Colbert Busch – she’s his mother’s best friend and was his confirmation mother at the Cathedral at St. John the Baptist, which is why, out of “my loyalty to Lulu,” he donated $500 to her campaign.

Politically, though, Doyle said they couldn’t be further apart, which is why he voted last Tuesday for Republican Teddy Turner, son of CNN mogul Ted, who came in fourth with 8 percent in the primary.

Doyle said politicians don’t affect him much, so if it turns out his donation helps her win, “more power to her.”

Even Doyle’s vote for Turner was shaped by personal relationships: his wife works at Charleston Collegiate School, where Turner is an economics teacher. “So I really didn’t have much choice there,” he said, laughing.

That’s just the way local races in South Carolina work, Charleston lawyer Mark Tanenbaum said.

“A lot of people know that when they have a friendship with candidates, you contribute when you’re asked to,” he said. “We all see each other, know each other, and feel an obligation to a certain extent so long as in the long run it’s not going to defeat our ideals.”

Tanenbaum, a Democrat, donated to both Colbert Busch, whom he supports, and one of the Republicans who sought to oppose her, state Rep. Chip Limehouse, who came in seventh. 

“I’ve known Chip Limehouse for quite some time. He’s a friend of mine; he asked me if I would give him some money just for the primary. He knew that if he got into the general election that I was not able to support him,” Tanenbaum said. 

Charles Way, president of real estate firm The Beach Company, gave $1,000 to Limehouse and $500 to Colbert Busch less than a month later. “They’re both good friends of mine,” he said, adding that his actual vote would remain “between me and the polling place.” 

The party-flipping goes both ways: one Charleston businessman, a lifelong Democrat, gave $1,000 to Tim Scott’s congressional campaign in 2010 after Scott sat him down personally, telling him he would be an “independent thinker” in the House of Representatives.

Scott, now a Senate appointee, turned out to be a “tremendous disappointment,” the businessman said. So by 2013 he was ready to make a contribution to Colbert Busch, with whom he was already friendly.

“I had known Lulu and thought very highly of her but had not thought of her in a political context before,” he said.

Even if Colbert Busch makes the most out of her donations, from Republican friends and others, she’s still running in a district that Romney won by 10 percent in 2012 – a reality that Robert New, a Romney donor who also gave to Colbert Busch, acknowledged.

“There are certainly some people on the waterfront who are unhappy [with Sanford],” said New, the owner of a Charleston waterfront business who became friends with Colbert Busch when she worked for a shipping company. New said many port businesspeople were turned off by Sanford’s anti-earmark stance that he took to Washington during his first congressional tenure in the 1990’s.

“But,” he added, “I still think she’s an outside shot.”