US Partisanship Blunts Infidelity Scandals, Letting Some Politicians Rebound After 1 Affair
Updated
Updated · thepreamble.com · Jun 8
US Partisanship Blunts Infidelity Scandals, Letting Some Politicians Rebound After 1 Affair
3 articles · Updated · thepreamble.com · Jun 8
Summary
Mark Sanford’s 2009 Argentina affair showed how an apparently career-ending scandal could still leave a politician standing: he finished his term as South Carolina governor and won a House seat in 2013.
The report argues infidelity now hurts politicians less consistently because voters increasingly filter scandal through partisan loyalty rather than treating sexual misconduct alone as disqualifying.
Earlier cases followed a harsher script when the affair signaled a broader flaw: Gary Hart’s 1987 presidential bid collapsed, Eliot Spitzer resigned within days in 2008, and John Edwards was politically ruined.
In those older scandals, the political damage came less from sex itself than from what voters thought it proved—recklessness, hypocrisy, cruelty, deception, or abuse of power.