I was trying to figure out if it was possible to draw 2 majority black districts in SC. I don’t think so.
I could connect about 40 state legislative seats (all represented by Democrats) with sufficient population and just barely majority black. The blackest Republican state legislative seat is 36%.
But the area stretches from the Georgia line to the North Carolina line, and there are too many whites trapped on the Atlantic side of the black belt. If the new district has a Horry County (Myrtle Beach) focus, you need to cut through three state legislative seats along the NC border to get to more whites. Along the GA border, it’s two. I’m thinking this is the better way to go to get a 6-1 advantage anyway. So the new district would run from Horry County south toward Charleston, and then Tim Scott’s would run from Charleston south to Beaufort, then turn north along the Georgia border.
It won’t happen that way I believe.
Scott will get Beaufort + Charleston.
Wilson will collapse into Lexington and surrounding areas.
SC-7 will be Horry + Georgetown + the the Democratic Pee-Dee areas in SC-5.
Gowdy will drop half of Spartanburg County to Mulvaney, and Mulvaney obviously drops the Pee-Dee.
They don’t want Shaheen in the new district. So that kind of dictates the map.