Mayor Axel, the dog who ran a write-in campaign for mayor of Shandon, has died | Arts and Entertainment Features

On an early Sunday morning in 2018, Axel Hodges greeted parishioners as they left church. Tail wagging by his owner’s side, he humbly requested treats and pets with pleading, big eyes. 

“I finally have a politician in the family,” Jim Hodges, Axel’s owner and former Governor of South Carolina, joked to his wife, Rachel, when he returned home that morning. 

Axel, the nine-year-old Bernese Mountain dog who successfully campaigned as the “mayor” of the Shandon neighborhood in Columbia, died in his sleep Oct. 13, the Hodges confirmed. 

During his time as mayor, Axel spent time with constituents of the neighborhood, encouraged people to get out and vote through a billboard campaign and rode in this year’s St. Pat’s in Five Points parade. He was a dedicated public servant who Jim Hodges described as “aggressively friendly.”

“He treated everybody the same. I mean if there were five people standing there, he’d go up to each one of them and they’d feel special,” Jim Hodges said. 

Axel, who was born to a local breeder in Chester, S.C. on Christmas Eve and came to live with the Hodges in Columbia in early 2014. As a puppy, Rachel Hodges said veterinary staff nicknamed Axel “Goofball” because of his massive paws and clumsiness. 

But the clumsiness didn’t stop him from a successful write-in campaign in 2018. His owners put out signs with his name on them and his mayoral running became a running joke in the neighborhood. Even the South Carolina Election Commission took notice. 

“They thought we deserved acknowledgement and in fact, they started the letter with ‘We’d like to congratulate Axel on a PAWsitive campaign,” Rachel Hodges laughed. 

Axel’s 2018 campaign was run during an actual gubernatorial race and at a time when political tensions were rising in the state and across the country. The Hodges wanted to find a way to encourage people to vote in a way that was more fun and light-hearted. 

“It was one of those years where campaigns were particularly contentious and we thought everybody just needs to settle down and lower the temperature a little bit so we thought a joke was in order,” Rachel Hodges explained.