Notable personal detailsAlex Pelbath is a Republican candidate for U.S. House in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District in the 2026 election cycle. He is a retired U.S. Air Force officer who has been described in local reporting as having commanded the last U.S. flight out of Afghanistan in 2021 and later served at Joint Base Charleston before retiring. He lives in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and has described himself publicly as a Trump-aligned conservative and political outsider.