South Carolina is undoubtedly a red state. The Governor as well as all eight constitutionally elected statewide officers are Republicans. Republicans have a comfortable majority in both the South Carolina House of Representatives and Senate. Seven of eight United States Congressmen are Republicans as well as both United States Senators. Both South Carolina Senators have been Republicans since Fritz Hollings retired prior to the 2004 election. A Republican has been in the Governor’s mansion for 28 of the last 32 years.
As dominant as the Republican Party has been at the statewide level, it pales in comparison to the dominance of the Democrat Party from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until the emergence of the modern South Carolina Republican Party. In the 34 gubernatorial elections between 1878 and 1962, the Republicans only contested twice. In 1938, the Republican candidate, Joseph Augustis Tolbert, received a total of 283 votes in the statewide general election. The most votes any Republican Presidential candidate received from 1900 until 1952 was Herbert Hoover’s 5,858 in 1928.
The first serious Republican gubernatorial candidate was Joseph O. Rogers, who switched parties in 1966 to run against Democrat Bob McNair. Rogers received 42% of the vote. In 1970, Albert Watson running as a Republican received 46% of the vote, losing by fewer than 30,000 votes. Dr. James B. Edwards was the first modern Republican elected Governor defeating Bryan Dorn in 1974.
While South Carolinians remained and voted solidly for local and statewide Democrat candidates through most of the 1960’s and 1970’s, and in some smaller rural counties even today, South Carolinians began their break with the national Democrat party much earlier. In 1948, Democrats dissatisfied with Harry Truman’s support of proposed civil rights legislation ran South Carolina Governor J. Strom Thurmond for President under the banner of the States’ Rights Democrat Party, the Dixiecrats. Governor Thurmond won South Carolina and three other southern states and was competitive in several others. In 1952, South Carolina voters took another step away from the national Democrat Party. The Democrats had nominated Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson as their presidential candidate and the Republicans nominated General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower had two powerful allies in South Carolina, Thurmond and Governor James F. Byrnes. Byrnes was elected Governor in 1950 after serving the State in Washington, D.C. as a member of the House, Senate, an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court as well as an influential advisor to President Roosevelt. Byrnes’s last Washington assignment was as President Truman’s Secretary of State.
Eisenhower appeared on the 1952 presidential ballot twice; as an “Independent for Eisenhower” and as the Republican nominee. Eisenhower carried 25 of 46 counties and lost to Stevenson by fewer than 5,000 votes statewide. In 1952 while a near majority of voters were willing to vote for the Republican candidate, they were not willing to do so as Republicans. Eisenhower received 158,289 votes as an Independent yet only 9,793 as a Republican.
Eisenhower did win 4 southern states in 1952, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, and was easily elected. In the 1956 election, Eisenhower received 75,700 votes (25%) in South Carolina appearing solely as the Republican candidate. Stevenson again carried South Carolina, but with only 46% of the vote. A slate of unpledged delegates received the remaining 29% of the vote. Unlike today, in the 1952 through 1980 elections, South Carolina was a battleground state on the Presidential level. In these 8 elections, Republicans and Democrats each won 4 times with most being closely contested.
Mark W. Buyck, III
Concentrating in Banking, Business, Civil and Business Litigation and Appeals, Contracts, Employment, Government, Real Estate
248 West Evans Street | Florence, SC | 843.662.3258
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