South Carolina lawmakers on Tuesday all but ruled out the possibility of redistricting ahead of the midterm elections, voting not to return to the State Capitol to consider redrawing their congressional map to favor Republicans.
The vote came after several Republicans had raised concerns that carving up the district held by Representative James E. Clyburn, the state’s lone Democratic congressman, could backfire on their party.
The vote, ensured via five Republican defectors, appears to close the door on South Carolina joining a redistricting war that has reached new heights, particularly in the South, ever since the Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Voting Rights Act.
Unlike their counterparts in states like Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana, some South Carolina Republicans have not been full-throated in their support of mid-decade redistricting, mostly because they are skeptical that it would guarantee one more Republican-leaning congressional district. Instead, they fear that Democrats could be competitive in newly created districts.
Gov. Henry McMaster, a term-limited Republican, had said that he would let the Republican-controlled General Assembly decide the matter. On Tuesday afternoon, some Republicans were already calling on him to schedule a special session to force the legislature to take on redistricting. Among them were conservative candidates for governor who are vying for support from their party’s base, including Alan Wilson, the state attorney general.
President Trump, though, fueled a pressure campaign in the state as part of his effort to retain Republican control of Congress. The South Carolina House voted last week to allow for the possibility of going back into session later this spring to take on redistricting. House lawmakers are up for re-election this year and considered much more vulnerable to Trump-backed primary challengers; state senators will not face re-election until 2028.
Last week in Indiana, several anti-redistricting Republicans lost their primaries to Trump-backed candidates.
In South Carolina, some Republicans in the State Senate appeared much less enthusiastic than their counterparts in the House about redistricting, including Shane Massey, the Senate leader. His hesitation, he said, was largely rooted in not wanting to inadvertently help Democrats.
“My concerns haven’t changed,” Mr. Massey told reporters last week, after a new proposed map circulated among lawmakers in Columbia, the capital. On Tuesday, he was among the holdouts who voted not to return to the Legislature.
Other Republicans have promised that the fight isn’t over. Drew McKissick, the chairman of the state Republican Party, said in a statement that “thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling, Republicans have been given an opportunity and we should maximize it.”
Elsewhere in the country, the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a congressional map that the Republicans who control the state’s Legislature drew last year with the hope of winning an additional House seat in the midterms.
Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C.
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