South Carolina is a state with a strong political culture. Its two major parties are the Republicans and Democrats, who have contested local elections since Reconstruction. The Republican Party has dominated the majority of statewide elections since the 1980s, winning every gubernatorial election since 2002. South Carolina is also home to many smaller political parties, including the Libertarian Party, Green Party, Constitution Party, American Party, and Reform Party. These parties offer alternative perspectives on important issues such as health care reform and taxation policy. In addition to state-level politics, South Carolina also has many local governments that are responsible for providing services such as law enforcement, public safety, education, and infrastructure development. Local politicians in South Carolina work hard to ensure that their constituents receive the best possible services from their government representatives.
The political climate in South Carolina is somewhat conservative.
In South Carolina 43.4% of the people voted for the Democratic Party in the last presidential election, 55.1% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.5% voted for an Independent Party.
In the last Presidential election, South Carolina remained strongly Republican, 55.1% to 43.4%.
South Carolina voted Republican in the previous six Presidential elections.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
South Carolina is somewhat conservative.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
South Carolina, South Carolina: R R r R R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last four elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in South Carolina
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 107,939 contributions totaling $10,764,757 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $100 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 53,657 contributions totaling $18,296,398 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $341 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)