South Carolina is one of the very few states that has never trended toward either party in more than a generation. For more than 30 years, it has basically voted almost exactly 15-16 points to the right of the nation in every presidential election.
South Carolina has been remarkably consistent in its pro-Republican voting habits. There have been very few changes to the county-level map in the past twenty years, with only a handful of rural counties flipping Republican and Charleston County shifting Democratic in that time. As was mentioned above, Obama came within single digits in the state in 2008. If Biden manages to do so this year, that may be enough for Joe Cunningham to win reelection.
Isn't the SC Republican map a VRA violation? SC has a 30% black population, and there is only 1 of 7 that (14%) is a black seat. A second black seat would be at 29% of the population which is right where the black population is statewide. SC should have 2 black seats not 1. Republicans since the 1990 census have been willing to give away safe black seats in the Deep South, as it made all the rest of the seats safe Republican white ones.
I'm not too familiar with the intricacies of the Voting Rights Act, but I've heard this argument before. I remember reading
Daily Kos' gerrymandering series, in which they produced fair maps for each state under the 2010 Census. I believe they had two different versions of a fair South Carolina map, and both of these showed the state with 2 majority-black, Democratic seats. One was based in Charleston, and the other in Columbia. Now that SC-01 has gone to the Democrats, and current trends suggest that it will become more Democratic in the years to come, it would certainly behoove Republicans to create the second black district. But of course, they may just decide to redraw SC-01 so that it includes more Republican territory in the Lowlands, or eliminate it altogether.
