MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. '� Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina governor once so tarnished by a spectacular lie about a love affair that few expected him to recover, is now heading to Congress. Mr. Sanford beat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Democrat with no previous political experience, The Associated Press said about 90 minutes after polls closed.
Mrs. Colbert Busch had briefly led Mr. Sanford in early polling, buoying hopes among some voters that a Democrat would, for the first time in more than 30 years, represent the coastal district that includes Charleston.
But in the end, it was not meant to be. Voters decided that Mr. Sanford's message about the need for fiscal overhaul and his attack on Democrats in Washington mattered more than his personal transgressions.
In 2009, Mr. Sanford had appeared to commit professional suicide by covering up a trip to Argentina to see his lover with a story about hiking the Appalachian Trail.
To a majority of voters, that didn't matter '� at least not enough to vote for a Democrat.
'I've got a lot of problems with Sanford, believe me,' said Jennifer Kavanagh, 42, a real estate agent. 'I'd have preferred to have another Republican, but I just don't agree with the way Democrats are spending.'
Mr. Sanford's political comeback could have been devised only by a veteran, as Mr. Sanford is. He held the seat for two terms before he headed to the governor's office in 2002.
Although he hung on to the end of his second term, paying a $74,000 fine for ethics violations, his political career suffered a wound that some thought fatal.
His comeback began in March, when he battled a crowded primary field to get to Tuesday's special election. It was never clear that he could win, even though the district is populated with country club Republicans and more conservative Tea Party voters.
Tuesday's vote, however, proved that his approach '� first ask for forgiveness, then talk about redemption and finally hammer on the Democrat's fiscal policies '� worked.
The race got the most media coverage of any here in recent years.
The seat opened up in December when Gov. Nikki Haley appointed Representative Tim Scott, a favorite of the Tea Party, to replace Jim DeMint in the Senate. Mr. DeMint had stepped down to run the Heritage Foundation.
Mr. Sanford held the seat from 1995 to 2001, riding a wave of Republican power led by Newt Gingrich and articulated by the party's Contract with America.
After easily beating a Republican primary field of 16 candidates this spring, Mr. Sanford seemed a good bet to take the race from Mrs. Colbert Busch.
But in April, leaked documents from his divorce revealed that his ex-wife, Jenny Sanford, claimed that he had been in her house watching the Super Bowl with one of his sons in violation of their divorce agreement. (The two will head back to court on Thursday to resolve the issue.)
From that point, it appeared that Mrs. Colbert Busch stood a real chance. The National Republican Congressional Committee pulled its support of Mr. Sanford, while national Democratic organizations poured money into her campaign.
On Sunday, Mrs. Colbert Busch received a key endorsement from The Post and Courier of Charleston, the largest newspaper in the area, and some Republican women stepped firmly into her camp. Several prominent women in Congress voiced support.
Mr. Sanford received support from several prominent Republicans, including Governor Haley, although some of it has been tepid. Senator Lindsey Graham, a fellow Republican, was more vocal, portraying the race in a series of statements and Twitter messages as a statement against President Obama.
The race drew an outsized amount of media attention. Reporters have been sent from The Guardian, a British daily, as well the national broadcast networks and political bloggers. Visiting journalists have been embraced by the Sanford camp. On Saturday, a group followed him around as he went in search of, as he put it, 'women who hate me' to help answer reporters' questions about whether his personal life will torpedo his political one.
His point, of course, was that the election was not about whether women '� especially Republican women '� were abandoning him or the party as a whole.
He and the state's Republican Party turned the election into a referendum on President Obama and his supporters, frequently evoking Mrs. Pelosi's name and citing the national Democratic Party's generous support of Mrs. Colbert Busch as proof of her ties to Washington.
'We are not trying to elect the 'how is your conscience' candidate,' said Charm Altman, president of the South Carolina Federation of Republican Women. 'We are trying to elect someone who can govern. We don't need any more Pelosi or Obama or Jim Clyburn Democrats in Washington.'
For her part, Mrs. Colbert Busch sought to make the election about one issue only: business.
She was vague but not supportive of President Obama's budget and health care reforms but specific on adding jobs in South Carolina, leaning heavily on her experience as a longtime maritime executive '� experience that matters in a district that is often more purple than the rest of the deeply conservative state and that relies heavily on its well-trafficked port in Charleston and jobs created by Boeing.
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