South Carolina voters on Tuesday were just like everybody else across the nation – only more so, turning what was already a very good election day for Republicans into an unprecedented Palmetto State blowout.
From the Upstate to the Lowcountry, the numbers were eye-popping.
At the top of the ticket, former GOP President Donald Trump crushed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris 58%-40%, besting his 2020 S.C. results by 6 points on his way to a convincing national victory.
In congressional races, Republicans retained control of six out of seven seats, with Third District GOP newcomer Sheri Biggs defeating Democratic challenger Byron L. Best 71%-26% to replace retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan. Other notable races included 1st District U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace’s easy win over Lowcountry businessman Michael Moore, and Midlands U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s 12th defense of the 2nd District seat he first won in a special election after the death of U.S. Rep. Floyd Spence in 2001.
At the Statehouse level, Republicans held onto their historic 2022 gains in the House and picked up four seats in the Senate, knocking off incumbent Sens. Kevin Johnson (D-Clarendon), Vernon Stephens (D-Orangeburg), Gerald Malloy (D-Darlington) and Mike Fanning (D-Fairfield). And while the Malloy and Fanning races are likely to go to automatic recounts on Nov. 14 due to the closeness of the final vote, Republicans will hold supermajorities in both chambers next year regardless of the results, with at least 32 of 46 votes in the Senate and 87 of 124 votes in the House. .
Finally, in local races, Republicans gained 13 county council seats, five county sheriffs, four clerks of court, three coroners, one probate judge and one auditor.
With Tuesday’s results, S.C. Republicans now control eight of nine seats in the state’s federal delegation, all nine statewide constitutional offices, supermajorities in both houses of the legislature, the mayor’s office in S.C.’s four largest cities and a clear majority on the state Supreme Court.
As one Democratic insider put it to Statehouse Report this week: “Republicans now hold unchecked power in the state of South Carolina.”
GOP reacts … and starts making plans
At a Wednesday press conference in Columbia, S.C. GOP Chair Drew McKissick called the results “an incredible testament” to the quality of Republican candidates and campaign workers.
“From the Lowcountry to the Pee Dee to the Midlands to the Upstate, South Carolina continues to realign its electoral politics with its traditional conservative philosophy,” McKissick told reporters. “The results speak for themselves.”
“Moreover,” he added, after running through a long list of Republican pick-ups, “no Republican incumbents anywhere in this state lost their election yesterday – none whatsoever.”
Gov. Henry McMaster was equally ebullient on Wednesday, calling Trump’s win “a tremendous victory.” In 2016, McMaster was the first statewide Republican elected official to endorse the New York real estate developer for president.
“I think we’re going to have four great years and I’m very pleased,” he said. “There’ll be a lot of changes, a lot of positive direction, and I think this time it will be with a lot more smiles than before.”
Closer to home, McMaster said he looks forward to working with the new GOP supermajority to move his priorities forward.
“There are a lot of things we still need to do,” he said. “We’ve got to have [higher] teacher pay. We’ve got to have a trained police officer in every school.… We’ve got to keep cutting those taxes.”
Statehouse leaders echoed McMaster’s forward-looking sentiments, with House Speaker Murrell Smith (R-Sumter) promising “conservative legislation that strengthens our state,” and Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey (R-Edgefield) saying he’ll work with his new supermajority to “champion conservative victories that make South Carolina an even better place.”
Some Democrats say problems run deep
State Democratic Party officials tended to focus on campaign mechanics in their post-election comments, noting to reporters that their best field and communications efforts were washed away in a red tidal wave. But some Democratic operatives said they thought the problems ran even deeper.
“These national results show how out of touch some of the elites in the Democratic Party have become,” Charleston-based Democratic strategist Lachlan McIntosh told Statehouse Report. “Democratic messaging did not sufficiently address the issues that voters care about most, and that’s a problem.”
That failure to put voters’ concerns first, he argued, was a major factor in the red wave that washed across the country and broke hardest in places like South Carolina.
“Voters are concerned about issues like higher grocery prices, this fear of illegal immigration and a very deep unease with the way they perceive the country is headed culturally,” McIntosh said. “And at the end of the day, those issues meant more than all of Donald Trump’s faults combined.”
Reached Thursday for comment, longtime S.C. Democratic operative Trav Robertson told Statehouse Report he was hesitant to make any final judgments before certified results were available, but shared his general concerns about what he sees as an unwillingness among top Democrats to take the fight to Republicans.
For instance, he pointed to the ease with which Republicans were able to gerrymander congressional and state legislative seats after the 2020 census.
“The most disillusioning thing I’ve ever been a part of in my years in politics was the redistricting process in South Carolina,” Robertson said. “The Democrats didn’t put up a fight at all and they didn’t create a record that could be used in court, and there’s no excuse for it.”
But even more broadly, Robertson wonders how a Democratic Party that prides itself on its civility can compete in a fractured media environment where falsehoods spread faster than fact checks.
“How do you win elections against people who lie and don’t tell the truth?” Robertson said. “And how do you win elections when a significant portion of the voters find it easier to believe something that’s not true as opposed to researching the truth? You tell me.”
State Democrats will next have a chance to answer those questions in 2026, when South Carolinians go to the polls to elect a gubernatorial replacement for the term-limited McMaster.
- Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!