COLUMBIA — Democrat Vincent Sheheen is running as hard as he can for governor in the final few weeks before the election, trying to make up the 60,000-vote margin in his race with Gov. Nikki Haley in 2010.


But perhaps his fate was sealed as soon as he decided to take on Haley a second time. Sheheen is struggling to get traction from voters who already know him. While Haley has weathered several small scandals, there is no big issue to hang on her as she runs for a second term.


Sheheen also faces independent candidate in Tom Ervin. Their campaign war chests are similar – each has about $3.5 million – although Ervin is using his own money, while Sheheen had to raise his. Both offer a lighter brand of conservative than the governor, and both want South Carolina to take money for Medicaid expansion, want to increase teacher pay and think Haley is a poor manager who only reacts when there is a crisis.


Ervin gives voters that don’t like Haley, especially those who lean a bit conservative, a fresh choice, said Scott Buchanan, a political scientist at The Citadel.


“Once you get the nomination for an office one time, it’s not that common to come back four years later and get it again. Sheheen is showing why that can be a struggle,” Buchanan said.


As the days to the election dwindle, Sheheen isn’t slowing down. He makes two to three campaign stops most days, hammering home a message that the Republican governor ignored education, chases poor paying jobs that do nothing to improve people’s lives, inflates those job announcement numbers and is too ethically challenged to lead South Carolina for four more years.


“If people who want honest government show up at the polls, I’ll win the election,” Sheheen said.


Polls aren’t too friendly to that idea. A survey of likely voters by Winthrop University at the end of September had Haley at 44 percent with Sheheen about 10 percentage points behind. Recent polls have looked worse.


And Haley has managed to get through her first term avoiding any big problems that stick in the minds of voters. The last two times South Carolina voters have kicked an incumbent out, there were issues hanging over the governor’s head. In 1998, David Beasley struggled with the Confederate flag on top of the Statehouse and whether to allow a state lottery. In 2002, Jim Hodges couldn’t explain away the disastrous evacuation of Charleston for Hurricane Floyd and long waits at the Department of Motor Vehicles.


Sheheen said Haley’s failings have been worse. He says the governor has failed to tell South Carolinians the full truth about a hacking incident in 2012 where information about millions of taxpayers was stolen from the Department of Revenue.


There was plenty of anger at the time, but dozens of hacking incidents at places like retailing giant Target have tempered the fury.


Sheheen said a number of children have been hurt or killed because Haley’s pick to run the Department of Social Services was too focused on saving money.


But Haley has shored up the most conservative Republicans who weren’t sure about her in 2010. And issues like DSS don’t resonate with the more independent conservatives who might consider an alternative to the governor, Buchanan said.


On ethics, Sheheen has been especially harsh. When Haley was a House member before becoming governor, she was accused of improper lobbying while working as a hospital fundraiser and for a highway engineering firm while representing Lexington in the state House. The House Ethics committee cleared Haley, and no criminal charges were filed.


Sheheen said it’s a different climate now.


“If Gov. Haley’s actions that she took four or five years ago occurred now she would be lucky she is not in the same situation Bobby Harrell is,” Sheheen said, referring to the House Speaker’s misdemeanor indictment on charges of misusing his office for personal gain and other offenses.


But so far, that harsh language apparently hasn’t moved the needle any closer to the 4.5 percentage points that separated Sheheen and Haley four years ago.


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Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.