In November 2018, the race for South Carolina Agriculture Commissioner was between the nominees of the Republican, Green, and United Citizens Parties. The two minor party nominees together polled 320,909 votes. David Edmond of the Green Party received 202,238 votes (15.13%), and Chris Nelums of the United Citizens Party received 118,671 (8.88%).

Superficially, these results are not surprising. Generally when only one major party enters a race for a lesser statewide state office, any minor party or independent candidates in that race poll a large share of the vote. But the 2018 Agriculture Commissioner race is newsworthy because such races are so rare in South Carolina. This is the first instance in South Carolina of a statewide race with only one major party candidate running against a minor party candidate since 1990. Back in 1990, the Comptroller race was between a Democrat and a Libertarian, and the Libertarian, David Morris, got 59,558 votes, 10.00%.

There have been some statewide races in South Carolina in recent decades at which only one major party entered a candidate, but in every instance in all the years since 1990, minor parties avoided these races. As for independent candidates, no one has ever successfully petitioned for one of these lesser statewide state offices as an independent in the history of government-printed ballots.