Grooms is the treacherous fiend who tried to pass an improper redistricting.
I don't recall there having been much controversy over redistricting this past time. The General Assembly has been in solid GOP control for well over a decade, so there was never much doubt about how it would go, or what the resulting partisan balance would be. The only significant question was whether the Pee Dee would be part of the 7th along with Myrtle Beach or if it would be part of the 5th in a district strung out from the Rock Hill area, and those debates were largely about geographic influence, not ideological influence.
There was some. Initially, Grooms and the Democrats came up with a rogue redistricting plan that placed the new district where you stated, so that Grooms could run in it. In that plan the weakest district (outside of SC-06) was about 3 pts weaker than the weakest district in the enacted map.
The eventual compromise stuffed more of Grooms's senate district into SC-01.
As it is, Grooms has collected endorsements from Mulvaney, Duncan, and Gowdy to follow.
