When will South Carolina turn blue?
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  When will South Carolina turn blue?
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Author Topic: When will South Carolina turn blue?  (Read 4121 times)
BigVic
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« on: October 05, 2022, 09:45:23 AM »

In 2020, Biden lost SC by 10.68% suggesting the Palmetto State is trending left. Will SC turn blue in the next 18 years?
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MarkD
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« Reply #1 on: October 05, 2022, 09:59:42 AM »

The state will have to transition through the purple stage first before it turns blue. Once it turns purple, it may take around 20 years to become fixed at blue.
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If my soul was made of stone
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« Reply #2 on: October 05, 2022, 10:21:36 AM »

I'm not holding my breath for the NYT piece declaring Spartanburg the new Place To Be for the young and in the know.
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ultraviolet
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« Reply #3 on: October 05, 2022, 11:14:11 AM »

Not soon because of retirees
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TML
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« Reply #4 on: October 05, 2022, 11:21:39 AM »

It's hard to say for sure, since there currently aren't that many swing voters in this state. Geographically speaking, Democrats need to make significant inroads in Upstate SC in order to be competitive statewide (for example, under the current political alignment, a hypothetical Democratic statewide win would involve them not losing Greenville County by more than 8 points or so).
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« Reply #5 on: October 05, 2022, 02:06:18 PM »

It's hard to say for sure, since there currently aren't that many swing voters in this state. Geographically speaking, Democrats need to make significant inroads in Upstate SC in order to be competitive statewide (for example, under the current political alignment, a hypothetical Democratic statewide win would involve them not losing Greenville County by more than 8 points or so).

This is correct, but obligatory pedantic point that this region is the "Upcountry", not "upstate" (much like Charleston and coastal environs are the "Lowcountry"). Source: my undergrad advisor was South Carolinian

The Upcountry has always been whiter and more industrialized than the rest of the state, as is immediately apparent in any election map from about 1948 to 1968 having Democratic strength concentrated among mill workers and hill people, but within the old Southern agrarian focus and lack of real industrial policy (now compounded by Taft-Hartley et al) there was not much of a labor movement to speak of nor any opportunity for them to advance their goals. Post-Reagan and all those realignments later it then became a center of outsourcing by East Asian industrial corporations who somewhat revitalized this aspect of its history, but again within a context of barren labor protections now doubly so in which the industrial workers are/were content as lumpenproles getting swept along by resentment politics as opposed to their material interests. And of course Southern racialized suburban resentment is in full swing here, especially in Spartanburg.
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« Reply #6 on: October 05, 2022, 09:20:22 PM »

I'm not holding my breath for the NYT piece declaring Spartanburg the new Place To Be for the young and in the know.

Maybe not Spartanburg, but when I spent Labor Day weekend in Greenville in 2019, I saw a truly shocking number of bachelorette parties. It's the new Nashville!
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« Reply #7 on: October 05, 2022, 10:24:17 PM »

Greenville and Spartanburg are growing, and getting bluer, but the black belt is depopulating too. SC is a pretty inelastic state too, so not really sure tbh, and I lived here for 19 years.
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Skill and Chance
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« Reply #8 on: October 08, 2022, 08:42:25 PM »

I could sort of see it in the 2030's.  NC would need to go first, of course.
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TDAS04
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« Reply #9 on: October 08, 2022, 09:28:46 PM »
« Edited: February 05, 2023, 10:50:32 PM by TDAS04 »

I used to think South Carolina was heading down the same path as Georgia, but it’s apparently not.  South Carolina has different type of growth (newcomers are older, whiter than in Georgia), and probably has at least a few more cycles to go before it’s competitive.
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Vice President Christian Man
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« Reply #10 on: November 08, 2022, 11:52:47 PM »
« Edited: November 09, 2022, 12:05:50 AM by Real Populism’s Never Been Tried »

The only way I could see this happen is if Charleston grows to Atlanta-levels and if the Charlotte exurbs trend left. It's possible but unlikely, there's just too many voters loyal to the GOP to make a huge difference and Blacks are trending Rep which could hurt them in demographically close counties, as it did in Jasper this past president election.
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Zedonathin2020
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« Reply #11 on: November 11, 2022, 09:14:59 PM »

2030s if a Democrat wins an Obama '08 level victory
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Red Wall
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« Reply #12 on: November 13, 2022, 09:55:43 AM »

Unlikely cause SC is basically the 2nd favorite retiree spot in the country.
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King of Kensington
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« Reply #13 on: December 14, 2022, 01:55:53 AM »

The Black population share of the population is declining and more white retirees are moving in - seems like a solid R state to me.
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Smash255
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« Reply #14 on: December 14, 2022, 02:26:53 PM »

Not going to happen anytime soon.  There will be some trends that cancel each other out for the most part.  What I do see potentially happening though is the Charleston area continues to grow and becomes Democratic enough that the district becomes a swing or Democratic leaning district and it could be difficult to gerrymander into a Republican one without making other seats vulnerable. 
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Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers
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« Reply #15 on: December 14, 2022, 03:37:55 PM »

Tim Scott is retiring in 28 so Jamie Harrison if he wants it can run for that seat
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #16 on: December 14, 2022, 03:49:34 PM »

I don't see SC turning purple anytime soon, much less blue. We turned even more red than we were before in 2022. McMaster won by almost 20% even though I felt Cunningham was a good candidate for the Democrats. I think we are seeing a Florida effect here where a lot of people moved here during the pandemic because McMaster was almost as radical as DeSantis when it came to going against Covid mandates and precautions. We basically opened up fully in May 2020 aside from closing bars at 11pm.

My home city of Charleston continues to shift more and more blue, but the rest of the state continues to trend GOP. You basically have Charleston and Columbia as the only Democratic counties in the state, and neither are big enough to override the massive GOP margins they get in other counties.
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King of Kensington
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« Reply #17 on: December 14, 2022, 09:23:15 PM »

Yeah, the retirees and declining Black population cancel out liberal transplants.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #18 on: February 05, 2023, 10:47:46 PM »

Massive population growth in one or more of its small cities. I can't tell you which city would become another Atlanta or Charlotte.

Indiana has a better chance due to its growing suburbs north of Indianapolis so long as Republicans double down on anti-intellectualism that is in practice anti-professional.
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Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers
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« Reply #19 on: February 06, 2023, 06:13:24 AM »

Carolinas are trending blue faster than FL and TX so 28 when Jamie Harrison is elected Sen without Scott
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Vosem
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« Reply #20 on: February 08, 2023, 07:52:55 PM »

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).
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Tekken_Guy
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« Reply #21 on: February 09, 2023, 11:52:28 AM »

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.
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Vosem
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« Reply #22 on: February 09, 2023, 04:47:19 PM »

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.
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dw93
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« Reply #23 on: February 20, 2023, 03:33:17 PM »

I think GA, AZ, and NC, now swing states, become solid blue before SC, Texas also becomes blue before South Carolina too.
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Death of a Salesman
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« Reply #24 on: February 21, 2023, 11:40:20 AM »

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