Trump painted SC a deeper shade of red

Thanks to Donald Trump, South Carolina is more Republican red today than when Democrat Barack Obama took office eight years ago.

Trump’s win in South Carolina was not a surprise. A Democratic presidential candidate has not carried South Carolina since Georgian Jimmy Carter in 1976, and polls predicted Trump would win the Palmetto State handily.

He did, crushing Democrat Hillary Clinton, 54.9 percent to 40.7 percent.

But how Trump won — taking 31 of the state’s 46 counties, compared to Republican John McCain’s 26 against Obama, the last time there was a presidential race without an incumbent — offers insights into how South Carolina is changing, politically and demographically.

For example:

▪ Trump won Calhoun County, in the state’s sole Democratic congressional district, and almost won the 6th District’s Clarendon County. He also won Colleton County, partially in the 6th District. Turnout in the 6th District for Clinton — drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature to include as many Democratic-leaning African-American voters as possible so the GOP can win the state’s other six congressional districts — was among the lowest in the state compared to 2008.

▪ Trump won Horry County with almost 25,000 more votes than Republican McCain received eight years ago against Obama. That explosion in GOP voters means that retiree-heavy Horry, a working-class beach haven, is now the state’s second most-vote-rich S.C. county for Republicans, up from fifth in 2008.

▪ Statewide, Trump won the turnout battle. For example, in the 6th District’s Jasper County — increasingly a Savannah suburb — the number of GOP presidential voters was up a staggering 54 percent from 2008. Clinton still won Jasper by 7 percentage points, but that margin was victory was down steeply from Obama’s 23-point win in 2008. And, if the growing-redder trend continues in 2020, Jasper is one of three traditionally Democratic counties that could flip Republican.

Meanwhile, in the larger counties in the solidly Republican industrial Upstate, turnout for Trump was up from 10 percent in Greenville County to 17 percent in Spartanburg compared to 2008. And, near Charleston, GOP turnout was up double digits in Berkeley, Dorchester and Georgetown counties.

‘Hillary Clinton failed’

Republicans point to several factors to explain Trump’s S.C. success.

More than 2.1 million South Carolinians voted in November, up 182,000 from 2008.

Trump won 1.16 million votes, 120,000 more than McCain in 2008, who won the state 54-45 over Obama. Meanwhile, Clinton won only 855,000 votes in November, 7,000 fewer than Obama eight years earlier.

“Hillary Clinton failed to effectively mobilize the Democratic Party base,” says S.C. GOP Party chairman Matt Moore.

Moore added Democrats continue to suffer in the Palmetto State because, nationally, their party has lost touch with America’s working class.

“Jobs and national security are the top issues on most voter’s minds, but Democrats keep obsessing over social issues and political correctness,” Moore said.

Meanwhile, “Trump mobilized working-class voters who might otherwise have stayed at home,” Moore said, citing Trump’s policy positions opposing free trade as an example.

The backlash against free trade is a direct result of seeing boarded up downtown districts, Moore said.

Rural areas growing more red

S.C. Democrats say Clinton’s loss in Calhoun County and narrow victory in Clarendon County reflect a longtime trend: Rural areas are shifting toward the right, nationally, while urban areas are growing more Democratic.

Compared to 2008, Democrats did add voters in some of the state’s more populated areas — Greenville, Lexington and York counties, for example — but still lost those counties in landslides. Democrats also added voters in Richland, their strongest S.C. county, and Charleston, two of the counties that Clinton won.

But the losses and near-losses in rural counties — long part of Democratic coalition of big-city voters, and rural minority and “yellow dog” voters — trouble some Democrats.

Four of the party’s unsuccessful congressional candidates issued a news release last week blaming the state Democratic Party, saying it had not been supportive enough of them and did not run a 46-county, statewide campaign.

Meanwhile, S.C. party leaders long have found fault with their national party, saying it is not supportive enough of the state party, viewing it as a lost cause, given South Carolina’s GOP history and Electoral College math.

‘Folks ... didn’t show up’

Local party leaders blame poor Democratic turnout, a lack of enthusiasm for Clinton and changing demographics.

Eight years after Obama’s 3.6 percentage-point victory in Calhoun County, Republican Trump flipped the script, beating Clinton by 2.8 in the 392-square-mile county, just 45 minutes south of Richland.

Meanwhile, Clinton beat Trump by just 2.2 points in Clarendon County, a far weaker showing than Obama’s 12.3-point victory there in 2008.

Turnout was down in both counties in November compared to 2008.

More than 3,160 of Calhoun County’s 10,794 registered voters did not cast a ballot in November. And less than half of the registered voters in the county’s largest and most Democratic precinct voted, according to Calhoun Democratic Party chair Ken Hasty.

Hasty said some Calhoun County observers wonder if blue-collar voters flipped to Trump.

“There are a lot of blue-collar individuals that the Democrats typically rely on,” Hasty said. “Those are the folks who didn’t show up.”

Role of changing demographics

Clarendon County Democratic chair Patricia Pringle points to changing demographics to explain Trump’s stronger showing in her county, compared to McCain in 2008.

Clarendon has seen an influx of white retirees who live by Lake Marion, she said. Meanwhile, the county’s young Democrats are moving away in search of work, drawn to big cities.

“There’s not a lot of jobs in Clarendon County for young people,” Pringle said. “Once they graduate high school and college, they move away.”

Pringle and Mary Cooper, an executive committeewoman of the Clarendon party, also say negative press and the late reopening of a federal investigation into Clinton’s use of her private email discouraged some Democrats.

“A lot of times, you get around and you talk to people, people are just not interested anymore because they feel that their candidates are letting them down,” Cooper said.

S.C. party leaders say there is hope, pointing to more populous areas of the state that shifted left in 2016.

For example, Clinton performed better in Richland and Greenville counties than Obama in 2008, they note, and fell less than a percentage point from matching Obama’s 2008 margin of victory in Charleston County.

“Moving forward, Democrats are focused on simultaneously building on improvements where we’ve made them while making up ground where we’ve lost it,” S.C. Democratic Party policy director Matthew Ellison said.

“To regain support in rural America, Democrats will be well served by advocating economic development policies like Congressman Clyburn’s 10-20-30 anti-poverty initiative, which will invest in communities that have been neglected for far too long.

“In campaigning and governing alike, Democrats can neither take anyone for granted nor write anyone off.”

This story was originally published January 17, 2017 at 7:41 AM with the headline "Trump painted SC a deeper shade of red."