COLUMBIA — The Senate on Tuesday rejected a push to redraw the state’s congressional lines just weeks before the primaries, with GOP leaders saying it’s legally unnecessary and wrong for South Carolina.
Senators’ 29-17 vote fell short of the two-thirds majority approval needed to proceed. Officially, senators refused to add redistricting to a resolution setting the rules for what the Legislature can do after the session ends Thursday.
Five Republicans joined all 12 Democrats in voting “no.”
That’s despite pressure from President Donald Trump, who called Republican senators personally over the last week, phoned in to a meeting of GOP senators, and publicly prodded the majority caucus through his social media platform.
“I’m watching closely, along with all Republicans across the Country who are counting on their Elected Leaders to use every Legal and Constitutional authority they have to stop the Radical Left Democrats from destroying our Country,” the president wrote Monday night on Truth Social.
But Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said legislators need to stand up for what’s best for South Carolinians. And an overhaul that postpones congressional primaries and discards absentee ballots already cast — especially from military members overseas — to maybe create an all-GOP delegation will ultimately backfire, said the Edgefield Republican.
Overall, the confusion will lower voter turnout for a second set of primaries, Massey said, while motivating angry Democrats to vote in force in November.
Plus, he said, South Carolina shouldn’t just take orders from Washington, no matter who’s in the White House.
“The states are sovereign independent creatures,” Massey said, giving his colleagues a history lesson of the country’s founding and the rebel nature of South Carolinians.
“I’ve got too much Southern in my blood. I’ve got too much resistance in my heritage” to just rush through a map not created by South Carolinians, he said.
Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto agreed it’s not right to take a “map someone else gave us,” which will only exacerbate political divisions. The Orangeburg Democrat called it unfair to voters and the congressional candidates who may suddenly live in a different district. The map itself may actually benefit Democrats, he said, but the process is wrong.
Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Isle of Palms, noted that early voting starts in just 14 days. Other states that have changed their voting lines for the midterm elections, including Missouri, Texas and California, did so months before people went to the polls.
Nearly 8,250 total absentee ballots have been mailed and 354 of those have already been turned in, according to the election commission.
“It’s almost impossible for us to pull this off, not without a tremendous amount of error added in,” Campsen said. “What if we do pull it off? What do we have? Those who crafted this map had no interest whatsoever — they could care less about our communities.”
Opponents’ concerns about the proposed new lines include putting parts of downtown Columbia in the same district as Clemson, while splitting the Charlotte suburbs in York and Lancaster counties.
The entire effort started a week ago with a House GOP Caucus meeting. On Wednesday, the House voted along party lines to add redistricting to the off-session rules.
Legislation was fast-tracked at the president’s request.
After the U.S. Supreme Court threw out Louisiana’s congressional map as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering, the White House and Gov. Henry McMater urged Republican leaders in both chambers to look at the ruling and South Carolina’s map.
That’s a reasonable request, Massey said, but the decision did not apply to South Carolina’s map, which has been upheld by both the U.S. and state supreme courts.
“We don’t have a racial gerrymander. We have a partisan gerrymander. We were trying to maximize Republican seats,” he said about the post-2020 census redistricting. “We did it before everyone else did it,” he added, referring to other Southern states’ recent moves to redraw lines for partisan gain.
As Massey spoke, shouting in the Statehouse lobby briefly got security’s attention. About 10 people paraded through yelling, “This is what democracy looks like! Don’t rig our map!” They were escorted down the steps and outside without issue.
‘Just not reality’
Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee took up legislation on the next steps: delaying the congressional primaries until Aug. 18 and advancing the White House-endorsed map.
That map, which was first circulated by the House GOP last Thursday, uses “political data” to create seven GOP seats, said the map’s author, Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust.
According to the trust, the overhauled map gives Republicans the advantage in every district, with the smallest spread at 11 percentage points in the overhauled 6th District.
That’s the one safe seat for a Democrat, held by U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn since 1992. The map would draw him out of the district he’s represented for 34 years.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Luke Rankin said Republicans are being asked to just trust the map does as advertised.
“What you think you’re getting may not be what you get,” said the Myrtle Beach Republican, who ultimately voted “yes” anyway.
After the vote, Massey reiterated that the map could result in a 5-2 delegation instead of seven Republicans. The supposedly large advantages in every district are “just not reality,” he said, as they reflect votes for Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, when the president won by 18 points statewide. Those numbers simply won’t be replicated in a midterm election.
If November is more like the 2018 midterms during Trump’s first term, Republicans’ advantage in the 6th District would shrink to less than 1 point — making it competitive and winnable for Democrats.
Two days left
Almost everyone who testified about the House bills opposed the effort.
The exceptions were two Republicans running for governor: Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Attorney General Alan Wilson.
Evette, who campaigns on her alignment with Trump, told legislators they need to do what the president’s asking.
Trump “has made his expectations unmistakable. There is no more time for hesitation or half measures,” she said.
She seemed to blast South Carolina’s existing map as drawn on “identity politics or left-wing social engineering,” though it was drawn by the GOP-dominated Legislature. It also brought lawsuits from the NAACP, American Civil Liberties Union, and the League of Women Voters, which ultimately lost in court.
“No more delays, no more excuses, no more indifference to activist courts,” Evette said. “We must finish this redistricting work now, by any means necessary.”
Wilson said it’s a “cause worth taking up,” while acknowledging there’s a lot of frustration and anger.
Just two legislative days remain in the 2026 regular session.
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee forged ahead on advancing the redistricting legislation even after acknowledging the Senate rejected the whole effort. The committee voted 15-9 on party lines to send the bill to the floor to potentially take up if senators change their minds.
As for what’s next, “All I can tell you is, I believe the House has done what we can do to further the process,” said Rep. Jay Jordan, R-Florence.
A do-over vote in the Senate is possible. But Massey said that’s highly unlikely.
If the session ends without a resolution governing the off-session, McMaster could call the Legislature back. But even then, he would have no authority to set the parameters for what legislators do. And he can’t require them to do anything.
He has previously declined to say whether he supported the redistricting push, calling it a legislative matter.
On Tuesday night, McMaster posted on social media that legislators still have two days to finish their work, to include considering “the important question of redistricting,” but stopped short of saying how they should resolve it.
The House bill
While the House proposal would delay primaries for South Carolina’s seven congressional seats, it would leave contests for U.S. Senate, state House and statewide elections on schedule for June 9, with runoffs two weeks later.
Holding a second set of primaries in August could also cost taxpayers more than $3 million, when factoring in almost-certain runoffs. That does not include spending by county elections offices. It also doesn’t include the redistricting process itself.
The House bill originally suggested an Aug. 11 primary. But a House panel voted Tuesday morning to bump that back a week to give the elections agency time to retool its databases and mail out overseas ballots the required 45 days in advance.
Even so, elections Director Conway Belangia warned everything would have to go exactly right, otherwise “staff would have to work probably 24 hours a day to meet the deadlines.”
Any runoffs would be Sept. 1. In South Carolina, primary runoffs are required if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote.
The vote tallies would then have to be certified by the federal deadline of Sept. 19 to make the cutoffs for mailing out overseas ballots for the November general election.
“All of the work that goes into election integrity would be compressed into 10 days,” Rep. Spencer Wetmore said.
“We have spent years talking about election integrity, and it has been a Republican talking point that we have been rigging elections,” the Folly Beach Democrat said. “I don’t ever want to hear that again, because if this isn’t questioning election integrity and rigging maps, I don’t know what is.”
Jessica Holdman writes about the economy, workforce and higher education. Before joining the SC Daily Gazette, she was a business reporter for The Post and Courier.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Seanna Adcox is a South Carolina native with three decades of reporting experience. After covering the S.C. Legislature and state politics for 18 years. she launched the SC Daily Gazette in November 2023 as the 37th state affiliate under the States Newsroom umbrella. Her previous employers include The Post and Courier and The Associated Press.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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