The winners and losers of SC’s newly drawn Statehouse seats, in the House and Senate

COLUMBIA — The redrawn election lines for South Carolina legislators give more power to the coast and also to the suburbs of Charlotte where population ballooned over the last decade, while further depleting the influence of rural communities.

The new maps signed into law Dec. 10 carve new seats into Charleston, Horry, and York counties by expanding the geographical size of districts elsewhere — a by-product of the state’s lopsided growth since 2010.

Republicans could add to their majorities in both chambers — almost certainly in the House, where the new seats are in Republican territory. Wins there would give the House GOP Caucus a supermajority advantage.

And in a state where most elections are already decided in the primaries, even fewer House seats become competitive in a Republican-versus-Democrat general election race. Less than 1 percent of that chamber’s 124 seats become winnable by the opposing party, except in extraordinary circumstances, according to the nonpartisan League of Women Voters. 

The nonpartisan group’s message to voters is simple: Vote. And make sure you do so in the primary because even if the November ballot has a choice between Republican and Democrat, the outcome is usually predetermined by district demographics. 

"Most of these elections for the General Assembly are over in June,” said Lynn Teague, the League’s state director of issues & advocacy, denoting the traditional party primary month.

Why are the districts changing? 

The 2020 census showed an increase of nearly 500,000 South Carolinians over the last decade, a 10.7 percent population hike.

The lines had to change so that each House member will represent roughly 41,000 people starting with next year’s elections, and each senator will represent about 111,000 constituents. Uneven growth made simple tweaks statewide impossible.

Population exploded along the coastline and the Charlotte suburbs south of the North Carolina line, while rural areas posted either little growth or declining numbers. Basic math meant those high-growth districts had to shrink to shed population, and rural seats had to grow in size to pick up more people.

The details for accomplishing that were up to legislators. In South Carolina, the House and Senate oversee drawing their own lines in the decennial process.  

The Upstate saw the least change in the redrawing. While the Greenville/Spartanburg population also surged, the growth was fairly consistent across the region, making big moves in the state’s northwest corner unnecessary.

"That’s why," Teague said, "the big geographic winners — where population added power — are limited to the coast and area just south of Charlotte. The big loser was the poor, rural corridor along Interstate 95." 

Where are the new districts?

Charleston County is the only county to get a new seat in both the House and Senate.

The House carved a district into Mount Pleasant, sandwiched between the Wando River and U.S. Hwy. 17, guaranteeing that whoever wins District 80 will live in the state’s fourth-largest city, which the map splits four ways.

The carve-out moves Rep. Joe Bustos’ safely GOP district further up the coast, south of Hwy. 17, stretching to include all of Sullivan’s Island into Bulls Bay. And William Cogswell’s more-competitive seat shifts westward to include chunks of Mount Pleasant and James Island, as well as downtown Charleston south of Calhoun Street, where he lives.        

The Senate created a new, Democrat-heavy district that includes much of West Ashley and James Island, using the Stono and Ashley rivers as natural boundaries, as well as a chunk of downtown Charleston between The Citadel and Broad Street. It takes areas from Republican Sen. Sandy Senn’s district, which becomes more rural, extending past Ravenel into parts of Dorchester and Colleton counties.

The overall numbers of House and Senate seats haven’t changed. Rather, both of those Charleston County pick-ups are coming from mergers in the Columbia area.

Horry County gets a new House seat that extends from the Intracoastal Waterway up U.S. 501, enveloping Conway, by enlarging districts in the rural Pee Dee.

And York County gets a new House district that forms a triangle — using the North Carolina border, Interstate 77, and the Catawba River as boundaries — and includes Lake Wylie’s peninsula city of Tega Cay. That carve-out comes from mergers in Orangeburg County.   

While there’s no new Senate seat for the Charlotte suburbs, the district that includes areas of York and Lancaster counties just south of the North Carolina border had to shrink the most of any statewide. That seat, held by freshman GOP Sen. Michael Johnson of Fort Mill, shed all but the tip of Lancaster County, where the population is exploding in the once-rural, unincorporated Indian Land.

That resulted in big shifts for districts held by Sens. Mike Fanning, a Chester County Democrat; and Penry Gustafson, a Kershaw County Republican who ousted a long-time Democrat last year. Her seat stays safely Republican, while Fanning — who flipped his seat blue in 2016 — faces a tougher re-election.

"While changes there were unavoidable," Teague said, it means “all of that growth south of Charlotte is drowning out the voices of rural, small-town and longtime residents in areas right below that.”         

Who benefits? 

Overall, Teague gives the Senate map a thumbs up and the House lines two thumbs down, based on how much choice they give voters in a general election.

The Senate keeps the same number of districts competitive, meaning they have a roughly equal number of Republican and Democrat voters, plus or minus 5 percent, giving candidates of either party a shot at winning, according to an analysis of precincts and voting history. 

Still, that’s just seven out of 46 Senate seats. 

Two seats held by Democrats became newly competitive after Sen. Kent Williams of Marion picked up part of Horry County and Sen. Vernon Stephens’ district shrunk from parts of five counties to three: Orangeburg County, his home, and corners of Dorchester and Berkeley counties.

Meanwhile, districts held by GOP Sens. Senn and Chip Campsen of Isle of Palms shifted to solidly Republican.

Teague said that’s largely a function of where the growth occurred, rather than gerrymandering.

In terms of keeping communities together, the new Senate map is actually a big improvement over the current one, she said. 

It keeps seven more counties whole within a Senate district, splitting 27 instead of 34, and splits less than a dozen precincts, down from 151 statewide.

“In the Senate map, voters are generally winners,” Teague said. “On the House side, they’re losers.” 

She and others criticize the House map as extreme gerrymandering to help incumbents of both parties.

"When it comes to redistricting, bipartisanship is not necessarily a good thing,"she said.

The new House map cuts in half the number of competitive districts, from 16 to eight, out of 124 seats, according to the league’s analysis. It divides 33 counties, one less than the current map, but splits 365 precincts, compared to 82 splits in the League’s own proposal. 

“There is nothing at the Statehouse that happens to be more bipartisan than the drawing of district lines, because they work things out between themselves,” Teague said. While the Senate map isn’t perfect, “they didn’t rig it. The House pushed it for sure. It’s friendly to them personally.” 

Rep. Jay Jordan, who led the House’s redistricting panel, said that’s not the case. The Florence Republican contends the changes are simply due to a shifting toward the population growth. From a math perspective, he said, it’s harder to keep communities together in House districts because they represent fewer people.         

Teague acknowledged it’s not possible in some places to craft seats that aren’t shoo-ins for one party or the other. But she noted the League’s proposed lines, which didn’t consider where incumbents lived, had 19 competitive House seats.

The reconfiguration of House lines automatically ousts five incumbents. Six Democrats are drawn into three districts, and four Republicans are merged into two.

But re-election becomes easier for others. At least five House Democrats are in districts no longer competitive, including J.A. Moore of North Charleston, who flipped the seat in 2018. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary is Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg, who squeaked out a win last year to keep a seat newly made deep blue.   

What’s next? 

The new outlines for House and Senate seats are law. Gov. Henry McMaster signed the bill for both chambers Dec. 10, a day after a final vote in the House sent it his way. 

Lawsuits challenging the new maps are possible, though more likely on the House side, where filing to run is just three months away. Senators aren’t up for re-election until 2024.

Both chambers are in the process of drawing new lines for South Carolina’s seven congressional seats. House and Senate panels have released widely divergent proposals on how to do that.

Unlike the Statehouse maps, where each chamber approves its own lines and doesn’t mess with the other, the U.S. House lines will be a compromise between the House and Senate. Debate on their separate bills will pick up when the Legislature returns in January.