In 1970, Spence ran for the 2nd congressional district seat again. Watson had become a Republican in 1965, a year after Thurmond's own switch; he was giving up his congressional seat ran in 1970 for governor. He was defeated by the Democratic lieutenant governor, John C. West. Spence won a narrow victory, becoming the first freshman Republican congressman elected from South Carolina since 1896; he was the second Republican to be elected from the state since Reconstruction (Watson was the first, elected as an incumbent after his switch to the Republican Party). Both he and Watson represented conservative whites, rather than the majority African-American Republicans in South Carolina who had supported the party of Abraham Lincoln. Spence was unopposed for reelection in the Nixon-Agnew landslide of 1972 and reelected fourteen times thereafter. `In 1974, Spence defeated challenger Matthew J. Perry, an African-American Democrat who had made his reputation in civil rights cases.