When will South Carolina turn blue?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

SC is the only state which became whiter during the 2010s. It's very unlikely that Democrats win it anytime soon.

LoL Tim Scott won and Harrison depends on Voting Rights in 24 is thinking about running in 28 since Scott is retiring

[Death of a Salesman]

SC is the only state which became whiter during the 2010s. It's very unlikely that Democrats win it anytime soon.

LoL Tim Scott won and Harrison depends on Voting Rights in 24 is thinking about running in 28 since Scott is retiring

This is gibberish.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

SC is the only state which became whiter during the 2010s. It's very unlikely that Democrats win it anytime soon.

SC Rs should pray to the lord that the Horry County firewall gets ever taller. In the future, they might need the votes.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

SC was very close before it went 60/40 like FL D's are trying to make it a battleground

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

SC is 26 percent blk that's enough with female vote to turn SC blue in a Prez yr not Low turnout Midterm

[Roll Roons]

FWIW, I would think SC flips before MS. At least the Charleston/Columbia/Greenville metros plus the SC side of the Charlotte metro are seeing decent growth and some swings towards Democrats, despite the depopulation of the Black Belt and a continued influx of conservative retirees into Horry County.

[Roronoa D. Law]

SC is the only state which became whiter during the 2010s. It's very unlikely that Democrats win it anytime soon.

And weirdly enough it moved to left because the incoming whites are more Democratic than the native ones.

I think GA, AZ, and NC, now swing states, become solid blue before SC, Texas also becomes blue before South Carolina too.

True, though in all honesty, SC shouldn't be that far behind the rest of the Atlantic South. It goes to show how much retirees have affected politics in the region. Georgia has Atlanta which has been one of the fastest-growing metros numerically. And I think NC's stagnant trend can be blamed on young professionals breaking even with retirees while SC's growth is probably a good chunk retirees.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

People don't know what wave insurance is it means not required for Prez we only need 270 but need it for H and S like we need KY, MT and OH Gov and S for the Filibuster proof Trifecta and TX, FL and MO are also Battleground and NC at the end of a campaign not beginning

[Skill and Chance]

Likely too much retiree influence for it to happen in the current era.  I'm not even sure about NC anymore. 

[Mr.Phips]

Likely too much retiree influence for it to happen in the current era.  I'm not even sure about NC anymore. 

NC also has the problem of black belt depopulation.

[TDAS04]

While South Carolina is getting less black, the whites themselves have become less overwhelmingly conservative thanks to people moving in.  SC whites now vote more like GA whites than AL/MS/LA whites.

Not that that's enough to turn SC blue very soon.

[Progressive Pessimist]

SC is the only state which became whiter during the 2010s. It's very unlikely that Democrats win it anytime soon.

LoL Tim Scott won and Harrison depends on Voting Rights in 24 is thinking about running in 28 since Scott is retiring

This is gibberish.

You haven't seen anything yet.

[Death of a Salesman]

SC is the only state which became whiter during the 2010s. It's very unlikely that Democrats win it anytime soon.

And weirdly enough it moved to left because the incoming whites are more Democratic than the native ones.

I think GA, AZ, and NC, now swing states, become solid blue before SC, Texas also becomes blue before South Carolina too.

True, though in all honesty, SC shouldn't be that far behind the rest of the Atlantic South. It goes to show how much retirees have affected politics in the region. Georgia has Atlanta which has been one of the fastest-growing metros numerically. And I think NC's stagnant trend can be blamed on young professionals breaking even with retirees while SC's growth is probably a good chunk retirees.

It hasn't moved to the left, though. It went from Bush+17.08 (a R+14.62 lean) to Romney+10.47 (a R+14.36 lean), to Trump+11.68 (a R+16.13 lean). There's no reason to expect South Carolina to trend Democratic in the near future, and Democrats who think it's the next Georgia are mostly delusional wishcasters who think every state is trending Democratic.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

SC is the only state which became whiter during the 2010s. It's very unlikely that Democrats win it anytime soon.

And weirdly enough it moved to left because the incoming whites are more Democratic than the native ones.

I think GA, AZ, and NC, now swing states, become solid blue before SC, Texas also becomes blue before South Carolina too.

True, though in all honesty, SC shouldn't be that far behind the rest of the Atlantic South. It goes to show how much retirees have affected politics in the region. Georgia has Atlanta which has been one of the fastest-growing metros numerically. And I think NC's stagnant trend can be blamed on young professionals breaking even with retirees while SC's growth is probably a good chunk retirees.

I disagree with the first sentence, in fact, it seems the incoming old boomers are more republican than the native whites.

[libertpaulian]

I think putting it as the first state may help accelerate things.

Iowa used to be pretty Republican post-WWII, and then when Dems prioritized it as "First in the Nation" in the early 70s, the margins started to narrow for the GOP. In Reagan's 1984 landslide, it voted to the left of the nation, even as it voted red. Then, it finally went for Dukakis in 1988 and was Dem in every cycle until 2012, with the exception of 2004.

Maybe in the 2030s.

[King of Kensington]

SC is mostly retiree growth and the retirees coming aren't particularly liberal.  There's no major economic sectors attracting educated liberals to the state en masse.  It's more of a Florida than "the next Georgia."

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Probably only when there's some kind of really large-scale realignment? South Carolina's lean relative to the country has remained really constant in the 21st century, and the demographic trends of the state as a whole don't seem particularly conducive to a Democratic trend. (It's hard to say how much weight to put on 2022, because it was so state-specific, but the Red Wave did hit South Carolina, as some posters have noted). Also, South Carolina really doesn't have a booming metro area like Nashville, and even then it's not like Tennessee is turning blue anytime soon.

South Carolina/US/South Carolina-lean:
2000: R+16/D+0/R+16
2004: R+17/R+3/R+14
2008: R+9/D+7/R+16
2012: R+11/D+4/R+15
2016: R+14/D+2/R+16
2020: R+11/D+4/R+15

This is actually one of the most consistent states in America, relative to the national environment! (Also, relative to the US as a whole, the worst GOP performance in South Carolina was 2004, and not one of the more recent Trumpy elections where they weakened in the Sun Belt. This is mostly attributable to South Carolina being heavily black and so having a relatively high Democratic floor, but...still).

There is clearly blue trends in Charleston. It was regularly voting for Republicans pre-Trump and Obama barely won it both times. Now it’s gotten blue to the point that the red suburban part actuallly had a Democratic congressman for a term.

Sure; here are the same numbers for Charleston County:
Charleston County/US/Charleston-lean:
2000: R+7/D+0/R+7
2004: R+5/R+3/R+2
2008: D+9/D+7/D+2
2012: D+3/D+4/R+1
2016: D+8/D+2/D+6
2020: D+13/D+4/D+9

So this is a pretty monotonic Democratic trend (except for the Romney campaign; in a lot of places Romney really only slowed the suburban shift, but in Charleston he outright reversed it, which is interesting), but it's a big state outside of Charleston. Here are the same numbers for Horry County, where Myrtle Beach is (which is growing faster than Charleston):

Horry County/US/Horry-lean:
2000: R+16/D+0/R+16
2004: R+26/R+3/R+23
2008: R+25/D+7/R+32
2012: R+29/D+4/R+33
2016: R+37/D+2/R+39
2020: R+33/D+4/R+37

So Biden actually reversed the trend in Myrtle Beach, but it's still significantly more than twice as red as it was in 2000, and growing faster. Plus the rural Black Belt as a whole has been gradually trending Republican. (But Columbia has also been trending Democratic, since that's another 'real' metro area). It all adds up to a state that isn't going anywhere.

Outside of Charleston and Columbia, there are no Democratic strongholds in SC. Greenville and Myrtle Beach are big Republican basestations. Charleston has seen a lot of liberal whites move in in the last decade or so even though the county has gotten whiter. The GOP has also lost a lot of moderates who flipped parties with the arrival of Trump.

That is what makes SC different than Georgia. If all of SC's urban areas were Democratic strongholds, the state would be more competitive, but that's not the case.

[ReaganLimbaugh]

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