South Carolina Republican Senate Primary

Redistricting Following The 2020 Census

This section lists major events in the post-2020 census redistricting cycle in reverse chronological order. Major events include the release of apportionment data, the release of census population data, the introduction of formal map proposals, the enactment of new maps, and noteworthy court challenges. Click the dates below for additional information.

Nasty Nc Senate Primary Tests Trump’s Sway Over The Gop

Donald Trump has endorsed conservative Rep. Ted Budd in North Carolinas critical Senate race, the former president’s first foray into an open primary in a battleground. That state’s retiring Republican senator has other ideas.

Sen. Richard Burr praised North Carolina’s former GOP governor, Pat McCrory, as the only one in the race that can win the general election” for the seat Burr is vacating. Pat McCrory has a commanding advantage,” Burr added.

Behind the scenes, Burr is even less subtle about next year’s Senate battle. One Republican senator said Burr is telling everyone that McCrory is the only one that has a chance to win. And the laid-back incumbent, who voted to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection in February, also appeared puzzled by the former president’s decision-making in North Carolina.

I cant tell you what motivates him,” Burr said of Trump. “Ive never seen individuals endorse a candidate a year before the primary. Thats unusual.

As Democratic Washington becomes consumed with the challenges of enacting President Joe Bidens agenda, Republican politics still revolve around Trump. But the open question is how long Trump’s dominance will last: Budds internal poll released after the former presidents endorsement showed him lagging badly behind McCrory. Trump has lost his Twitter megaphone and the round-the-clock news coverage he had as president, potentially hamstringing the effectiveness of his seal of approval.

How The Primary Works

A primary election is an election in which registered voters select a candidate that they believe should be a political party’s candidate for elected office to run in the general election. They are also used to choose convention delegates and party leaders. Primaries are state-level and local-level elections that take place prior to a general election. South Carolina utilizes an open primary system, in which registered voters do not have to be members of a party to vote in that party’s primary. Voters must take an oath affirming that they have not voted in another party’s primary.

For information about which offices are nominated via primary election, see this article.

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Harrison Coalition Falls Short

Todd Shaw, University of South Carolina

In a decisive victory, incumbent Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina won his race against Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison.

Based on 96% of the reported vote, Graham netted 55% to Harrisons 44%. This is nearly the exact same percentage of the South Carolina vote Donald Trump commanded over Joe Biden in the presidential race.

Not only does this suggest there was little split-ticket voting down ballot, but Graham also outperformed many of the polls, which had indicated a much closer contest. At one point, the Cook Political Report had even deemed the race a toss-up.

Harrison, who is African American, raised $57 million dollars in a final quarter prior to the election setting an all-time quarterly record for a Senate race.

And yet this mass infusion of funds wasnt enough to unseat the three-term incumbent.

South Carolina has long been a Republican stronghold. Democratic statewide candidates can usually rely on the vast majority of Black voters, who make up around 30% of the total electorate, and tend to try to pad that with some percentage of remaining votes. Rarely is this enough to put a Democratic statewide candidate over the top theyll usually get somewhere between 43% of the vote, with a ceiling of 47%.

With 44%, Harrison was on the low side of that range.

Why?

Yet it seems as though Harrison ultimately failed to pad his base of Black support.

General Election Race Ratings

See also: Race rating definitions and methods

Ballotpedia provides race ratings from three outlets: The Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Each race rating indicates if one party is perceived to have an advantage in the race and, if so, the degree of advantage:

• Safe and Solid ratings indicate that one party has a clear edge and the race is not competitive.
• Likely ratings indicate that one party has a clear edge, but an upset is possible.
• Lean ratings indicate that one party has a small edge, but the race is competitive.
• Tossup ratings indicate that neither party has an advantage.

Race ratings are informed by a number of factors, including polling, candidate quality, and election result history in the race’s district or state.

This section will be updated with information about the political landscape in South Carolina.

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Republican Senate Candidate Boasts Staggering $13 Million Fundraising Haul Boosted By Nft Sales

Republican Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters raised $1.38 million in the fourth quarter of 2021 for his upcoming senate primary, helped by sales of non-fungible tokens , he announced Monday.

My campaign is generating a lot of excitement. We are pulling in new supporters and new sources of funding, Masters said in a statement. This is going to be one of the most expensive races in the country, and Republicans cant afford to put forward someone who refuses to do the work.

Masters announced last week that he would be partially financing his campaign through the sale of NFTs, unique packets of data that are stored on the blockchain, a decentralized public ledger distributed across multiple servers, and often corresponding to media such as a piece of digital art. The NFTs included a signed hardcover copy of Zero to One, a book he co-authored with tech billionaire Peter Thiel, along with digital cover art of the book.

The Senate candidate minted 99 NFTs in total and sold them each for $5,800, the maximum individual campaign contribution limit, according to his website, with the proceeds going towards his senate race.

Masters campaign announced late last week that all of the NFTs had been sold within 36 hours of their release, raising over $550,000 for the campaign.

Is South Carolina A Democrat Or Republican State

4.5/5in-depth answer

Donald Trump continued the Republican tradition in South Carolina, carrying the state with 54.9% of the vote. Hillary Clinton received 40.7% of the vote, underperforming Obama by about 4%.

Similarly, is South Carolina a swing state? Election analytics website FiveThirtyEight identifies the states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin as “perennial” swing states that have regularly seen close contests over the last few presidential campaigns.

Furthermore, which party did the people of South Carolina support?

The South Carolina Republican Party and the South Carolina Democratic Party are the two major political parties within the U.S. state of South Carolina.

Which US states voted for Trump?

Trump won six states that Democrat Barack Obama had won in 2012: Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Ultimately, Trump received 304 electoral votes and Clinton 227, as two faithless electors defected from Trump and five defected from Clinton.

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South Carolina Gop Leans On The Base

Clyburn cited Graham’s remarks in 2016 and 2018, when he said that he would not support filling a vacant Supreme Court seat in the last year of President Donald Trump’s first term. As the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Graham plans to hold hearings and to vote in support of Trump’s latest nominee to the nation’s highest court, Amy Coney Barrett. During the debate, Harrison called it a “flip-flop.”

But Graham and the GOP believe the issue is a strong point for them. During the debate, the senator defended the move, saying Republicans have historical precedent on their side when it comes to pushing through a nominee, as their party controls the Senate and the White House.

Graham also pointed to his track record of confirming numerous conservative Supreme Court judges and praised Trump’s choice of Barrett, a clear call to arms to Republican base voters in South Carolina. Harrison tweeted a day after the debate that the campaign raised $1.5 million since he had taken the stage.

Republicans in the state appear to believe that focusing their resources toward turning out more conservative voters will be key to Graham’s success, especially during a presidential election year.

That part of the state includes Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson counties. All of those areas voted in support of Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Trump went on to capture the key state four years ago by nearly 6 percentage points.

State Political Party Revenue

See also: State political party revenue and State political party revenue per capita

State political parties typically deposit revenue in separate state and federal accounts in order to comply with state and federal campaign finance laws.

The Democratic Party and the Republican Party maintain state affiliates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and select U.S. territories. The following map displays total state political party revenue per capita for the Republican state party affiliates.

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History Of Gerrymandering In North Carolina

Last decade, North Carolina was one of the most litigated states in the nation over its congressional and state legislative maps.

Democrats had held power for decades and had often drawn their own gerrymandered maps. When Republicans won legislative majorities in 2010, they then drew maps to consolidate their power.

In 2016, former North Carolina Republican state Rep. David Lewis helped draw a new congressional map after a previous map had been struck down for being racially gerrymandered.

“I acknowledge freely that this would be a political gerrymander, which is not against the law,” Lewis said. “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.”

Lewis was a defendant in a 2019 gerrymandering case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices in that case said that political gerrymandering was not unconstitutional and left the issue up to states.

% Of Gop Voters In Sc Back The Senate Judiciary Chairman Compared With 93% Who Back Trump

• Graham is tied with Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison, 46% to 45%, consistent with polling since July.

• Graham leads Harrison among white likely voters, 58% to 32%, while Harrison has a 70-point lead among Black voters, 81% to 11%.

This is the sixth in our Majority Makers series, a race-by-race look at the contests that will decide control of the Senate in 2021. See our previous dives on Colorado, North Carolina,Kansas,Michiganand Iowa.

Sen. Lindsey Graham is facing a tighter-than-expected re-election race this fall, according to Morning Consult polling, driven largely by the reticence of some Republican voters to commit to supporting him.

But strategists in the state on both sides of the aisle expect conservatives will fall in line for the three-term incumbent and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman as he prepares to play a pivotal role in advancing President Donald Trumps nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Grahams weakness compared to Trump in South Carolina polling has so far appeared to come mainly from Republican voters: While Trump has support from 93 percent of Republicans, Graham has support from 84 percent in the same poll making him one of the worst-performing GOP incumbents up for re-election this cycle among voters from his own party.

That latter group is Jaimes target, Hutto said on Monday. Jaime was never going to get base Republicans.

Matt Moore, former South Carolina Republican Party chairman

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Trump Reportedly Makes Deal To Clear North Carolina Gop Senate Field So His Candidate Can Win

Former President Donald Trump reportedly struck a deal this past weekend to clear the crowded field in North Carolinas Republican primary for Senate for Rep. Ted Budd, his preferred candidate.

Budd, who joined the fray in April and received Trumps endorsement two months later, has failed to emerge as the frontrunner in a GOP primary that includes former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker. One recent pollconducted for the conservative group Club for Growth, which has also backed Budd, found the congressman slightly behind McCrory even as Budds popularity rose in recent months, while Walker remained in a distant third.

An internal poll from McCrorys campaign, however, showed the former governor up by 15 points.

Over the weekend, Trump told Walker that he would endorse him if he dropped out of the Senate race and ran for a House seat, according to Politico.

Trump offered Walker the endorsement, and its expected to get rolled out this week, Walkers former chief of staff, Jack Minor, told the outlet.

Walker served in Congress from 2015-2020 in much of what is now made up by the 7th district in North Carolinas new congressional map.

The field is vying to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Richard Burr. Though Democrats fell short of beating Republican Sen. Thom Tillis in 2020, the race is likely to be one of the countrys most competitive in 2022.

Us House Of Representatives Results

Nancy Mace will face incumbent Democrat Joe Cunningham for the seat once held by Mark Sanford

Republican Joe Wilson will face Democrat Adair Ford Boroughs in November.

Hosea Cleveland will face incumbent Republican Jeff Duncan in November.

Former Gamecock standout Moe Brown will face Republican incumbent Ralph Norman in November.

Melissa Watson will face incumbent Republican Tom Rice and Libertarian Larry Guy Hammond in November.

Richard Cash won the special election for the seat formerly held by Kevin Bryant.

Tom Corbin elected to a third term.

Karl Allen defeats former Rep. Fletcher Smith for a third term.

Ross Turner elected for a third term.

Billy Garrett will face incumbent Democrat Floyd Nicholson in November in this Swing district.

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Context Of The 2020 Elections

South Carolina Party Control: 1992-2022No Democratic trifectas Twenty years of Republican trifectasScroll left and right on the table below to view more years.

South Carolina has a Republican trifecta. The Republican Party controls the office of governor and both chambers of the state legislature.

As South Dakota Campaigns Launch Thune Mulls Retirement

FILE Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 7, 2021. South Dakota political candidates are revving into full campaign mode this week, with a massive exception John Thune, who has delayed a reelection announcement as he considers stepping away from his post as the second-ranking Republican in U.S. Senate leadership.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. South Dakota political candidates are revving into full campaign mode this week with one big exception: Republican Sen. John Thune, who has delayed a reelection announcement as he considers retirement.

Thune, a longtime fixture as the state GOPs elder statesman and a likely pick to be the next Senate GOP leader, had indicated he would make a reelection decision over the holidays. But as South Dakotas campaign season officially opened this month with candidates allowed to circulate nominating petitions, Thune has made no indication hes any closer to a decision on seeking a fourth term.

His hesitancy provided further evidence of how serious he is about retiring a potential development that would upend national GOP politics and create a scramble among South Dakota Republicans to fill the void. With the Senate in session this week and a campaign announcement not expected until he can travel back to his home state the waiting will likely last at least several more days.

When you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, he told reporters. You could see this coming,

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State House Senate Districts Okd In South Carolina

COLUMBIA, S.C. South Carolina state senators approved new districts for the Senate and House Tuesday, but legal challenges are almost certain before filing begins in March for the 2022 elections.

The Senate voted 41-2 in favor of its lines, and the House approved its own districts on a 96-14 vote last week. Each chamber typically doesnt alter the plans of the other chamber when they approve the plan.

The new maps didnt make wholesale changes in the districts drawn a decade ago. But some changes were inevitable after South Carolina added nearly 500,000 people in the 2020 U.S. Census while still having 24 of its 46 counties lose population.

Lots of people to shift around, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Luke Rankin said.

Both the House and Senate maps have to be signed by Gov. Henry McMaster, but the Republican governor is almost certain to approve the work of the GOP-dominated General Assembly.

And groups that feel like South Carolina doesnt do enough to protect minority voting rights and fairness in elections are expected to sue over the maps. The NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union have already sued the state saying the redistricting process took too long since filing for the new districts starts in mid-March.