Posted on 05/26/2026 1:04:20 PM PDT by Red Badger
Some Republican lawmakers expressed resistance to enacting a new map for this year’s elections with early voting for the state’s June primary beginning Tuesday.
The Republican-led South Carolina Senate on Tuesday voted against advancing a new congressional map, ending the redistricting effort in the state for now.
The failed vote was a surprise rejection of President Donald Trump, who had urged lawmakers to pass the redrawn map that eliminated the state’s single majority-Black district, represented by longtime Democratic Rep. James Clyburn.
The South Carolina House approved the map last week in hopes of putting it into place for this year’s midterm elections. As part of the effort, lawmakers also sought to set another primary election for the affected districts in August. But after early voting began Tuesday for the previously scheduled June 9 primary, some Republicans in the state Senate changed their tune, arguing it was too late to enact new district lines.
“Neither my conscience nor my common sense will allow me to stop an election that is already underway,” said Republican state Sen. Richard Cash, who changed his vote due to timing.
Following the vote, another prominent Republican, state Sen. Tom Davis, condemned the effort. An earlier redistricting process took nine months of consideration, he said, while this push moved forward over the course of a few weeks.
“We have completely outsourced our constitutional obligation to prepare a congressional redistricting map to a consultant in Washington, D.C. We have no idea, no idea how that map was created,” Davis said.
Advisers close to the White House — which has pressed Republicans across the country to pass new maps over the past year to shore up the party’s narrow House majority — said they were caught off guard by the failed vote in the South Carolina Senate, with one calling it a “betrayal.”
“We knew it was bumpy all along, never a guarantee,” one adviser told NBC News. “But the votes were there on the last vote and nothing changed.”
The adviser also said that the White House was not given a heads up about the vote from South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, which they would have expected if votes were changing. The person said they were alerted by Attorney General Alan Wilson and “a couple” of state senators.
NBC News reached out to McMaster’s office for comment.
South Carolina isn’t the first Republican-controlled state to rebel against Trump’s redistricting agenda. In December, the Indiana Senate rejected a redrawn congressional map in a dramatic floor vote despite heavy White House pressure.
Trump enacted revenge earlier this month, successfully backing five primary challengers to the Republican lawmakers who bucked him.
In South Carolina, all members of the state Senate are up for re-election in 2028.
“These next two years are going to bring hell from the MAGA grassroots wing of the party already skeptical of many of these old guard GOP senators,” said one longtime South Carolina Republican operative.
Republicans in the South Carolina Senate had signaled their resistance to redrawing the state’s congressional map earlier this month, refusing to take up a new proposal as part of its regularly scheduled session. But amid pressure from the White House and national Republicans, McMaster quickly called lawmakers back for a special session to tackle the issue.
Republican state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said at the time that the effort would be short-sighted.
“I believe that our state is stronger with vibrant parties. I think we, as a whole, are stronger when we have a clash of ideas. I think that’s true at the national level. I think it’s true at the state level. We are stronger when we have a clash of ideas and we can discuss those policy goals,” Massey said at the time. “Republicans are stronger when the Democrat Party is vibrant and viable.”
Election officials in South Carolina had also raised concerns about making the last-minute changes and setting up additional primaries. Conway Belangia, the executive director of the South Carolina Election Commission, told a state Senate committee that it would cost an additional $6 million to implement the district lines for this year’s election.
South Carolina is one of several states that rushed to take up new congressional boundaries after a major Supreme Court ruling last month on racial gerrymandering. In recent weeks, Florida and Tennessee have enacted new maps, while Louisiana Republicans are advancing their own proposal.
Some of the battles over the maps are still playing out in the courts. On Tuesday, a panel of federal judges blocked Alabama from using a Republican-drawn map that could net the party an additional seat. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
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The rat SC Justices did this by slow walking their dissent. Bastards
South Carolina is a RINO rich environment.
Time to start cancelling committee assignments for the RINO’s.
They are Controlled Opposition. Same as every other Western country.
The left does whatever it takes to win.
The “conservatives” find every possible excuse to lose.
In SC, RINOs *control* the committee assignments along with just about everything else.
If anyone gets cancelled, it will be the conservative minority if they get too belligerent about the cowardice of the RINO “leadership”.
Join the party. Vote in the Primaries to retire these RINOs.
State Senate doesn’t get back for re-election until 2028. So it’s important this next two year term we primary them out.
Trump at most is two years, the SC legislators know where there bread is buttered.
does someone have a net net number of GOP likely gains from redistricting?
Is it enough to make GOP house likely?
Check their bank accounts.
Do the Same thing to SC Senate RINO’s as Indiana voters did to their
State Senate RINO’s.
The voter base quality in South Carolina seems very low. Low quality, low information voters.
They’re going to saddle us yet again with Lindsey Graham too.
Why do SC GOP voters keep voting against conservative republicans in favor of the Establishment?
What is wrong with the voters there?
Somebody in the forum needs to ask the question about the voters themselves. RINOs aren’t magical. Someone is voting them back into office like a xerox copier every election day.
Who are those voters?
Those voters are the problem.
LS posted that a day or two ago ...
Too many RINOs in Congress to do that, I think. They would rather lose their own elections than upset the Democrats and the Democrat Press.
great public exposure of the RINOs ... Trump’s PACs will also know which ones to primary ...
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