An all-Republican congressional map in South Carolina is in limbo after some GOP lawmakers defied President Donald Trump’s call for mid-decade redistricting to help win an additional House seat in the November midterm elections.
State Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey was among the five Republican lawmakers who sided with Democrats Tuesday in thwarting the two-thirds vote required to add redistricting to the legislature’s special session agenda. The state House adopted the resolution last week. Both chambers of the legislature are overwhelmingly Republican.
The state Senate’s action means that, at least for now, South Carolina’s 2026 election will proceed under the same election lines used in 2022 and 2024, when Republicans won six of seven districts, and veteran Democrat
Gov. Henry McMaster (R) has been noncommittal on calling a special session, as the state constitution allows, and is facing increased pressure to do so right after the legislature’s regular session concludes May 14.
“The General Assembly still has two full days in which to finish its important work, including giving full consideration—as sought by the people—to the important question of redistricting,” McMaster said in a statement Tuesday night.
McMaster can’t seek reelection this year because of term limits, and his would-be successors in the June 9 Republican primary have urged a new remap following a US Supreme Court ruling last month that sharply limited the use of race in drawing electoral districts.
Tennessee’s Republican government last week swiftly enacted a new map designed to help the party capture all nine of the state’s House seats, joining a mid-decade redistricting fight that began last year in Texas at Trump’s urging. Legislative action and court challenges are pending in other states.
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“All eyes are on the Governor,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R), another candidate for governor, said on X. “Governor McMaster must call for a special session.”
Hours before the state Senate vote Tuesday, a state House panel advanced a map proposal designed to elect Republicans in all seven districts and target Clyburn, whose 6th District is about 49% Black and safely Democratic.
Massey made multiple arguments against the map in an unusual, 50-minute floor speech. He said he spoke last week with Trump in what he described as a “gracious” call. Trump helped oust some Indiana Republican senators last week who voted down an aggressively partisan map last December.
“The president said, ‘Look, I hope you can help us out, but I understand you’ve got to do what you’re comfortable with. You’ve got to do what you think is right,’” Massey said.
Massey said the Supreme Court’s April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais doesn’t require South Carolina to redraw its lines and that Republicans aren’t assured of a 7-0 shutout even if they did. Under the state House map, Clyburn’s revised district would have favored Trump by 11 points in 2024 and by 4 points in 2020. Mace’s modified district would have backed the president by 14 points in 2024 and by 9 points in 2020.
“Trying to go to 7-0, I think, is extremely risky from a political standpoint,” Massey said. “I think at best you’re going to get 6-1, and you may even go 5-2.”
A 7-0 Republican map that splinters Clyburn’s district, Massey warned, could also spark a higher turnout from Black voters that would harm Republican candidates in downballot elections.
Clyburn’s reelection would help stanch a likely decline in Black representation in the next Congress. Black Democrats targeted by new GOP maps include Reps. Don Davis (N.C.), Emanuel Cleaver (Mo.), and Shomari Figures (Ala.).
All four Black Republicans in the House aren’t seeking reelection. South Carolina conservatives have noted their state’s Washington delegation includes Sen. Tim Scott (R), the Banking Committee chair and the first Black senator elected in the South since Reconstruction.
Massey also noted that South Carolina’s June 9 primary already is underway. According to South Carolina election officials, 8,247 absentee ballots had been sent out, and 354 received, as of May 12.
A separate House bill would set Aug. 11 House primaries in reconfigured House districts. Conway Belangia, the executive director of the South Carolina Election Commission, said last week that a second primary would cost between $2.2 million and $2.5 million.
A two-tiered primary is a “terrible idea,” Massey said. “It is going to result in a much diminished turnout. It is going to result in confusion among voters.”
Without mentioning Clyburn by name, Massey said South Carolina also benefits from having representation in Washington from both political parties, guaranteeing the state has clout with the White House regardless of which party controls the presidency.
Clyburn, a House member since 1993 and the dean of the South Carolina delegation, was a close ally of President Joe Biden. He’s a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and is the top Democrat on its transportation, housing, and urban development panel.
“There has to be somebody in South Carolina who can make a phone call and somebody at the White House will answer it,” Massey said. “If we don’t have that, South Carolinians are the ones that are going to suffer because of it.”
Jonathan Cervas, an assistant teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studies redistricting, said retaining Clyburn’s district means “you keep a very powerful Democrat in the House to potentially bring back what is called pork.”
“I always thought it would be unusual for Clyburn to be drawn out in South Carolina, so long as he intends to keep running,” he said.
— With assistance from
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