When Solicitor Jay Hodge announced he was not seeking re-election in the 2008 election cycle, two candidates offered themselves up for election in the June Democratic Primary. No Republicans filed for this seat, so the winner of this primary would end up running unopposed in the November general election.

Solicitor District 4 covers all of Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon and Marlboro Counties and the position is very much like that of a District Attorney, representing the people of those counties when criminal cases go before court.

Hodge's chief assistant solicitor, Will Rogers, hired CR+S to handle his campaign for this primary, and he ended up facing Jay Ervin in the Democratic Primary. Ervin had run for this position before, as well as State Senate, so many outsiders considered him the favorite heading into the race.

Playing off his name, Will developed the campaign slogan, "I never met a violent criminal I didn't want to put away." His campaign was a robust and positive-oriented one while his opponent ran a campaign that often attacked Will and the record of the Solicitor's office.

On Election Night, Will scored a resounding knock-out winning three of the four counties by large margins, and losing Darlington County (Ervin's home county) by less than 600 votes. After all four counties reported their final results, Will Rogers was declared the victor with more than 62 percent of the vote.