The South Carolina Redistricting Foul-Up Is Riddled With Irony and Disappointment

South Carolina delivered a major blow to the GOP’s redistricting efforts yesterday: they shut it down. On another key cloture vote on the new map, which the State House passed and the SC Senate Judiciary Committee approved, a dozen Republicans in the state Senate joined Democrats to block it, 24-20. This matter will now be taken up next session—it’s over.

The irony of how this turned into a circus is that the Republicans' main reason for trying to kill the push was early voting, which had started this week. The irony runs deep, since that also partly explains why Virginia Democrats’ gerrymandered map was struck down by the courts. Legal challenges were coming, and the timing was tight, but the GOP made it that way: slow-walk the process, secure a major cloture vote over the weekend on the second reading of the map, adjourn, and then present this weak excuse. This could have been done.

SC State Senate Republicans are hoping we’ll forget, since the next election cycle for them isn’t until 2028. We won’t—the powder will be kept dry.

We had a governor, Henry McMaster, who took too long to call a special session, and State Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey was also dead-set against this new map. Also, the way you knew this was going south was that no one in the Palmetto State gave the Trump White House a heads-up that the tide was turning (via NBC News):

President Trump needs a Republican Congress to continue pursuing conservative policies that make our nation stronger. I am confident that one day South Carolina’s congressional delegation will be completely Republican. I am disappointed that day has not yet come. With the…
— Gov. Henry McMaster (@henrymcmaster) May 26, 2026

Here are the 12 South Carolina Senate RINOs who joined Democrats in voting to kill the redistricting effort that would have eliminated Democrat Jim Clyburn’s racially gerrymandered district and given Republicans a 7-0 map:

- Sean Bennett — @BennettSCSenate
- Chip Campsen —…
— Bad Hombre (@Badhombre) May 26, 2026

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.

Here’s a thread on the legalese of the early voting problem:

Callais ruled ONLY LA's map unconstitutional as LA did not meet the standard to use race predominantly in drawing a district under Alito's new Gingles test. Contrary to popular belief, it did NOT outlaw any form of racial considerations in map drawing or maj/min districts (2/8)
— Isaiah Walker (@walkeri141) May 26, 2026

AL, separately, had a federal stay lifted allowing them to go back to a 6-1 map. This is not a Purcell violation because the federal courts aren't forcing AL to change something. Purcell leaves to the states to admin elections without federal intervention close to elections (4/8)
— Isaiah Walker (@walkeri141) May 26, 2026

As such, SC can change their maps for partisan gains, but they have no justification to end voting already in progress to do so. To argue Callais applies to force their hand is to admit perjuring themselves when they said the maps were partisan, not racial. (6/8)
— Isaiah Walker (@walkeri141) May 26, 2026

If SCOSC were to block implementation of the maps, federal courts would be violating Purcell to intervene. Purcell leaves to the states to run their elections without federal court interference when it's close to the election.

This is just my opinion ofc, not a lawyer! (8/8)
— Isaiah Walker (@walkeri141) May 26, 2026

There are a lot of procedural panics that still need culling.

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