Crossover Voting: South Carolina Democrats Hope to Influence GOP Elections

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by DYLAN NOLAN

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Democrats are openly plotting to influence South Carolina Republican partisan primary elections through crossover voting.

Never keen on subtlety, Upstate Democrat Taylor Culliver – who ran unsuccessfully for the S.C. Senate last fall – encouraged members of his party to cast their votes in this week’s special elections for multiple seats in the S.C. General Assembly. Culliver correctly predicted turnout in the election would be low, meaning a determined band of Democrats could have an outsized impact on the results of the race.

In a video posted to Instagram, Culliver encouraged Democrats to vote for former Spartanburg clerk of court Hope Blackley in the GOP primary for S.C. Senate District 12 (.pdf). He also expressed support for Reggy Batson, whom he encouraged his followers to vote for in the GOP primary for S.C. House District 21 (.pdf).

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“Some people will ask, ‘Taylor, why are you going to vote for Republicans who don’t really align with your values, who don’t believe the things that you believe, and who aren’t going to be fighting for the things that you want?'” Culliver said on the video.

According to the former candidate, he was reminded of something congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said – that elections (even ones where a Democrat doesn’t come out on top) are “about creating greater capacity for us to do the hard work of pushing our communities forward.”

Translation: even Democrats have their preferred Republican candidates, and they aren’t shy about (attempting to) organize in the hopes of getting those candidates elected.

Luckily for the GOP, Democrats in South Carolina appear to be even less effective at organizing crossover voting than they are at organizing on behalf of their own primary and general election candidates, something that was evidenced by this week’s decisive primary election victory of former S.C. senator Lee Bright.

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In Tuesday’s voting, Bright racked up 2,549 votes to Blackley’s 1,363. Democrats’ push to support Baston in the special House election was similarly unsuccessful.

While Bright had a handy margin of victory over Blackley, he only narrowly avoided a run-off election by securing 50.9% of all ballots cast. Per South Carolina election law, if a candidate fails to receive a majority of votes in a partisan primary race (i.e. 50% plus one), the top two vote-getters advance to a head-to-head runoff election two weeks later.

History shows this could have been fatal to Bright’s candidacy. After winning partisan primary races, he lost runoffs in 2016 (for State Senate), 2018 (for U.S. Congress) and 2024 (also for State Senate).

Could Democrat crossover voting have sunk him had he gone up against Blackley in a runoff election?

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Of the many rallying cries from No Kings demonstrators, “Nancy Mace has got to go” can be heard in this recording outside the Governor’s Mansion during their loop from the S.C. State House and back. pic.twitter.com/fiRytwfU2D

— Andrew Fancher (@RealAndyFancher) October 18, 2025

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Although the campaign to stifle Bright and other special election candidates lacked serious momentum, the same can not be said of Democratic efforts to impact the 2026 GOP Gubernatorial primary.

Multiple posts on left-leaning internet forum Reddit’s r/southcarolina subreddit are encouraging Democrats to turn out in droves to vote in next year’s partisan primary elections – which could be bad news for one candidate in particular.

For those of you living under a rock: Liberals do not like Nancy Mace.

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To be fair, the Lowcountry congresswoman and gubernatorial candidate does little to earn the love of the left. Mace’s hardline stances against biological males in private female spaces and her 24/7 rhetorical bombardment of Democrats on traditional and social media have drawn the ire of many who’d seemingly rather see nearly anybody else be next to occupy the governor’s mansion.

Mace’s campaign seems to wear Democrats planned support of her Republican political opponents as a badge of honor.

“The only thing this tells you is the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General are bankrolled by the Democrats… next,” Mace spokesperson Piper Gifford told FITSNews when asked about the Reddit thread.

Those familiar with the internecine warfare that perennially plagues the S.C. GOP may by now have noticed the candidates liberals collude to electorally disadvantage often overlap with the candidates the state’s Republican party leadership find most politically inconvenient.

One such legislator, S.C. House representative Rob Harris, recorded a video on the open primary issue when both the “mainstream GOP” H.3643 and S.C. Freedom Caucus H.3310 backed bills to close primary elections stalled in the House judiciary committee earlier this year. Harris noted that despite bills having been filed to close the primaries for the last 19 years, nothing has been passed.

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RELATED | ‘CROSSOVER CAMPAIGN’ FOR NIKKI HALEY

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This looked like it could change earlier this year when the S.C. Republican party backed a push to close the primaries. While the party sent out email blasts and press statements declaring it’s commitment to the cause, that message apparently never made it to S.C. legislative leadership, who have yet to advance the bill – or to governor Henry McMaster, who outright opposed it.

Although closed primary proponents are quick to criticize leadership for this decision, some Republicans are concerned that there is more to be lost than to be gained by closing Palmetto State primaries.

Opponents of the bills have pointed out the S.C. Democratic Party’s dismal organization could be bolstered by state-sponsored and publicly available voter rolls that could be utilized by Democratic political operatives who currently lack easy and affordable access to such valuable information. Opponents have often also contended that it cannot be demonstrated that crossover voters have ever voted in significant enough numbers to sway election outcomes.

“People have theorized that there may be masses coming over and voting in the Republican primary just to cause mischief, so far in our history, it has not happened,” McMaster told reporters when asked why he opposed the legislation.

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"This is the most common sense thing ever."@MarkLynchSC on closing S.C.'s open primaries during his livestream last night with @OwenShroyer1776 at USC.@FITSNews pic.twitter.com/z0XRQL4xRk

— Dylan Nolan (@dnolan2000) October 14, 2025

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While party leadership appear reticent to close primaries – whatever their messaging wing might say – the “common sense” appeal of the the issue has invigorated many members of the Republican base and led candidates to champion the issue in stump speeches, including upstate businessman and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Lynch.

Lynch accused S.C. GOP chairman Drew McKissick of promoting the mainstream GOP’s “fake” bill in an effort “to sound like he was for closing the primaries.”

“When you read the detail of it, it’s a complete lie,” Lynch during a recent event with journalist Owen Shroyer at USC.

“This is the most common sense thing ever,” Lynch concluded.

If past is prologue we should expect continued Republican rhetorical weel-spinning with little political change to show for the lip service paid to the issue.

Expect Democrats to continue to try (and likely fail) to to drag down who they perceive to be the state’s most conservative candidates.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

(Via: Travis Bell)

Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.

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