When will South Carolina become a swing state?

[Heebie Jeebie]

Self-explanatory:  During which presidential cycle will South Carolina become a swing state?

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

I'd say late 2020s/early 2030s. With a decent number of people moving there from outside the south, Dems should be able to get their share of the white vote consistently over 30% and of course there is a large AA population.

[Tekken_Guy]

Maybe in the 2030s, as the AA population grows, older conservative whites die off and are replaced by young liberal whites, the big cities become more dominant and transplants from liberal states arrive.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Never, but if it does, 2028, once Graham retires

[Skill and Chance]

Not sure that it ever will with the retiree influx to the coast, however it could become winnable in future Dem wave years since those moving in appear to be more elastic than those who grew up there.

[CEO Mindset]

Soon if the GOP's legislators in places like tennesee keep pushing anti-gay marriage initiatives and the national party decides to back them.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

It won't.  Not every state is becoming a swing or Democratic state.

[OneJ]

Not sure that it ever will with the retiree influx to the coast, however it could become winnable in future Dem wave years since those moving in appear to be more elastic than those who grew up there.

Mostly this.

[RINO Tom]

Hot take: we’ll have different trends long before the affluent and educated conservative suburbanites of South Carolina FINALLY have had enough with the GOP and make the state competitive.

[TML]

In order for this to happen Democrats must make significant inroads in the Upstate, which has been the primary driver of Republican dominance in SC overall.

[Vosem]

South Carolina is...not trending Democratic? Here're presidential margins, and leans compared to the nation:

2016: Trump+14 (R+16)
2012: Romney+11 (R+15)
2008: McCain+9 (R+16)
2004: Bush+17 (R+14)
2000: Bush+16 (R+16)

No particular trend in any direction in the 21st century. Sure, 2018 was a pretty decent year for the South Carolina Democratic Party, but I think that's mostly explicable by 2018 being a pretty good year for the Democratic Party in general. Here're South Carolina House margins and leans compared to the nation for the 2010s (this is quick-and-dirty done by averaging margins between districts, so it doesn't take into account differential turnout -- on a national scale it should overstate Hispanics at the expense of white liberals, but in SC it shouldn't matter much at all since both groups are scarce):

2018: Republicans+9 (R+17)
2016: Republicans+18 (R+17)
2014: Republicans+35 (R+30) **Ds did not contest SC-1[1] or SC-4
2012: Republicans+17 (R+18) **both parties left 1 seat uncontested
2010: Republicans+15 (R+8)
2008: Republicans+1 (R+11)
2006: Republicans+11 (R+19)
2004: Republicans+33 (R+31) **Ds did not contest SC-1 or SC-3
2002: Republicans+21 (R+16) **Ds did not contest SC-1 or SC-2; Rs did not contest SC-5
2000: Republicans+15 (R+14) **Ds did not contest SC-4

[1] Yes, the seat Joe Cunningham flipped was not contested in 2014, even though at a 2013 special election Democrats had already held the margin to single digits.

It's possible to get better numbers by estimating results for the uncontested seats using data from the races where the race was contested and applying national swings, but you basically get the picture. There doesn't seem to be a coherent trend in any direction in South Carolina; John Spratt retiring but Democrats leaving seats uncontested less often basically cancelled each other out.

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

As others have pointed out, South Carolina has shown no clear trend in either direction lately, so it's not going to become a swing state until either; 1) there's a massive Democratic wave nationally, or 2) there's a political realignment. it's also possible that, due the inelastic nature of the Deep South, it could easily go straight from being Solid R to being Solid D, but again this requires external circumstances that aren't there yet, such as a national realignment, or an influx of Democratic leaning voters, and I see no signs of either of these happening in the short term, so for now, at least, South Carolina will remain a solidly Republican state in most circumstances - although still winnable for Democrats in extraordinary cases, such as if the GOP nominates someone like Roy Moore, or if there is an extremely Democratic-leaning environment that causes the Democratic candidate to be washed ashore despite the state's normal GOP lean.

[MT Treasurer]

^Yeah, and Texas didn’t show a clear Democratic trend in 2012 and 2014 either. We all know what has happened since then.

[pppolitics]

In Inelastic South Carolina, Change Is Unlikely

https://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/in-inelastic-south-carolina-change-is-unlikely/

[TDAS04]

Probably not for a while.  It's considerably whiter than Georgia, and newcomers in SC are more likely to be white retirees than blacks, I think.

South Carolina doesn't seem to have the Georgia/Texas-style trends.  Yes, SC is growing, but so is Florida, which Atlas (rightfully) doesn't believe is trending Democratic.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Certain areas are trending D, like Greenville and Spartanburg, but it's not gonna be anywhere close enough to make the state swingy, just more elastic and willing to get a D in wave years.

[smoltchanov]

Maybe in the 2030s, as the AA population grows, older conservative whites die off and are replaced by young liberal whites, the big cities become more dominant and transplants from liberal states arrive.

[RINO Tom]

Maybe in the 2030s, as the AA population grows, older conservative whites die off and are replaced by young liberal whites, the big cities become more dominant and transplants from liberal states arrive.

*I come into this post NOT knowing the answers to these questions; I am not being facetious.*

1) Is there any indication that the Black population in SC is growing faster than the White population?  If so, is there evidence to believe this will continue long enough for the state to become competitive?  If not, is there evidence that this will start to be the case?

2) I think it's a decently fair assumption that these older, conservative Whites who die might be replaced with MORE older, conservative Whites.  Every year, more Whites from a generation that is fairly Republican retire, and a lot of them end up in places like South Carolina, Florida and Arizona.

3) Going off of point #2, is there really a trend of a lot of young, liberal Whites moving to SC?  How would one even track this?

4) The "big cities" wouldn't just have to become more dominant; they would have to become more Democratic.  Big difference between a very liberal Atlanta growing and growing and blueing its suburbs to the point that it can outvote its Republican exurbs and rural areas and a situation like Indianapolis, where a Democratic city really isn't that Democratic anyway.  I would argue SC is closer to the latter.  SC's metro areas might continue to get more and more Democratic AND grow, but you're counting on two things there (rather than just continuing to grow and expand and slowly outnumber the Republican vote).

I really don't see SC going the way of Virginia or Future Georgia.

[Roronoa D. Law]

It's trending D but slowly. SC is similar to MS and AK to an extent. The GOP is already maxed out rural and the rural areas with minorities majorities are losing population. Meaning that Republican victory comes mostly from suburban areas.

When talking about the suburban trend I always like the analogy of the working class suburb of Macomb and the more upper-middle-class diverse suburbs of Oakland. Republican do better in Macomb type suburbs and Democrats do better in Oakland type suburbs. As someone whose family is from SC, there is only a handful of suburbs that fit the mold of Oakland County. That is James Island, Mt Pleasant, and West Ashley in Charleston. Irmo and Forest Acres in Columbia. Which all trended pretty Democrat in 2018.

There just isn't enough room for Democrats to grow in SC. I agree that Republicans support in Greenville, York, and Lexington has likely peaked and Democrats will likely flip Dorchester, Berkely, with a slight chance in Beaufort in the next decade. So SC could start voting single digits but the chance it actually flips is slim. Plus Horry county is the fastest growing part now and if Democrats are losing support in Volusia they sure as hell ain't winning here.

[CEO Mindset]

It won't.  Not every state is becoming a swing or Democratic state.

With the current GOP's coalition deciding to focus on issues that only aging evangelicals/more severe catholics want, why not?

Of course the GOP's death won't mean dems forever, but a new second party

[CEO Mindset]

It won't.  Not every state is becoming a swing or Democratic state.

With the current GOP's coalition deciding to focus on issues that only aging evangelicals/more severe catholics want, why not?

Of course the GOP's death won't mean dems forever, but a new second party

For the most part, the GOP has been ignoring evangelicals, especially Trump. The GOP is becoming less conservative every day.

i wish. i suspect 2018 would have turned out different without that

[ElectionsGuy]

I don't know, but the state isn't trending Democratic. It's been incredibly consistent in its Republican percentage.

[AN63093]

There is no evidence to suggest SC will become a swing state, or even trend in one direction or another, at this point.

SC is one of the fastest growing states in the country, at 10%, and has the second fastest growing metro in the country (Myrtle Beach, at nearly 28%), and Charleston not too far behind at #14 (at 18.5%).  For this reason alone, we can expect some fluctuation and SC is definitely a state worth keeping an eye on- it may be one of the more interesting states to follow over the next few decades.  But to say it's trending D or R is way too premature at this point.  For one, although we know it's growing, we don't know whether that will cause it to go the way of FL or VA yet.  Or maybe somewhere in the middle like NC.  Contrast to say, GA, in which case there's a clearer trend.  SC did trend R in '16- again, contrast to GA.


Skill/Chance has a good point about the possible demographics moving in.  I would say that's one piece of the puzzle, but perhaps Greenville is the answer to that.  Not taking a position one way or another here, just saying it's too early to call or even identify a trend.

It's trending D but slowly. SC is similar to MS and AK to an extent. The GOP is already maxed out rural and the rural areas with minorities majorities are losing population. Meaning that Republican victory comes mostly from suburban areas.

I don't see the similarity here at all.  AK is in a completely different region of the country with completely different demographics- there is no resemblance whatsoever so far as I can tell.

There's more of a similarity with MS, but the only things they honestly share is that they're both in the South and are inelastic.  Other than that, the trends are completely different; not the least of which is the fact that SC is one of the fastest growing states in the US and MS is one of the slowest.

MS also has extremely unfavorable demographics for the GOP in the long term and is, in fact, a ticking time bomb for the GOP, where one could not say that for SC.  Rather, as I've illustrated above, the opposite could actually be true.

[NoSettlersAllowed]

Never, the retirees have made Florida trend R and will do the same at SC.

[sterk001]

South Carolina is one of those weird states in which its kind of steady in its voting pattern. I think Joe Cunningham's win in the 1st district was more a reflection of the national environment being more Dem in 2018, and if you look at the turnout numbers in the 1st district compared to 2016, it was much lower from what I remember off the top of my head. However, at the presidential level, it has been quite steady. Keep in mind that SC also had a long serving senator who was a Republican ahead of entire South's shift to becoming more Republican than in the 70s-80s (Strom Thurmond). So the answer is not anytime soon, but possibly in the 2040s depending on demographic shifts. At least that's my take. And demographic shifts aren't always a given, because they can go the other way too.