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by WILL FOLKS
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U.S. president Donald Trump is personally calling on South Carolina Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries ahead of the 2026 elections – even though the process is likely to be fraught with political peril for the Palmetto State’s ruling “supermajority.”
Trump was scheduled to speak with Republican senators on Tuesday afternoon (May 5, 2026) after having a lengthy discussion the previous evening with Senate president Shane Massey, who has steadfastly opposed redrawing the maps.
The president – who requested the call with the GOP supermajority caucus – wants Republican senators to take action now to ensure that South Carolina’s seven congressional districts are redrawn in time for next month’s partisan primary elections.
Typically, congressional districts are redrawn every ten years based on new population data. In recent months, though, multiple states have been redoing their maps in an effort to secure a partisan edge in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Trump now wants South Carolina to follow suit… something its leaders (with one notable exception) have heretofore resisted.
Trump is hoping to pick up another Republican seat in congress by eliminating South Carolina’s heavily gerrymandered sixth congressional district. Represented since its inception in 1992 by former majority whip Jim Clyburn, the sixth district was deliberately drawn to ensure representation by a black Democrat. That’s precisely the sort of race-based representation the U.S. supreme court struck down last week in its Louisiana v. Callais decision (.pdf).
Want to learn more about the Palmetto State’s sixth district and how it has endured as a bastion of non-competitiveness over the past three-and-a-half decades? And to figure out who is responsible for that? Click here.
South Carolina Republicans may struggle mightily to conjure up a map which yields seven GOP seats, though. As FITSNews reported yesterday, with Trump’s approval ratings currently circling the drain and economic pressures becoming more acute by the day, the ruling party would be hard-pressed to redraw the sixth congressional district to be more competitive “without risking other GOP seats in the process.”
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RELATED | POLITICAL BORDER WARS
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Democrats, who are no doubt seeing the same polling data, are practically begging Republicans to do Trump’s bidding on this issue.
Joe Cunningham, who represented the state’s first congressional district from 2019-2021, put it succinctly: “if the GOP wants to hand us the gift of multiple new competitive congressional districts in 2026, we should get out of their way and offer them a pen.”
“Clyburn’s voters don’t vanish,” Cunningham added. “They have to go somewhere. And that ‘somewhere’ is into GOP districts. If (the) SCGOP wants to turn one safe Democratic seat into multiple swing seats in a Democratic year, I’m not moving the rake.”
Also, the time to even attempt such a reconfiguration would seem to have long since passed. Not only has the filing period for all of these elections come and gone, but officials with the S.C. State Election Commission (SCVotes) have already begun to send and (critically) receive absentee ballots for the current election in keeping with federal law.
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Specifically, the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) requires that absentee ballots for federal races (including congressional seats) be sent to members of the military and other designated overseas voters at least forty-five (45) days prior to the election. South Carolina’s partisan primary elections are currently scheduled for June 9, 2026 – just thirty-five (35) days away.
As a result, county election agencies have already sent an estimated 5,230 absentee ballots to voters – and of those, as of today (May 5, 2026) 185 ballots have already been returned.
That’s right… votes have already been cast in South Carolina based on the current congressional maps.
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?#??? 185. That's the number of South Carolina absentee ballots ALREADY RETURNED to @SCVotes so far this election cycle (from service members and other designated overseas voters). That's right… votes have ALREADY BEEN CAST in South Carolina based on the current maps.… pic.twitter.com/Va2YnClzDR
— FITSNews (@fitsnews) May 5, 2026
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Are these votes to be invalidated?
None of these concerns would appear to be stopping S.C. House speaker Murrell Smith from pushing legislation which would attempt to delay the state’s congressional races to conform with new maps. According to our sources, Smith intends to ram a bill through his chamber within the next week that would reschedule elections for the Palmetto State’s seven congressional districts – giving lawmakers time to draw up new district lines.
“It’s a runaway train being driven by the speaker,” a source familiar with the proposal confirmed.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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1 comment
Well, the American experiment is pretty much over. Feudal lords get to pick their serfs now. Many MAGA dunces will rejoice over SC getting… one more Republican. Other states will completely bork their duty to the constitution and to their constituents for quick political power, further ensuring they can slavishly follow their corporate donors and just outright ignore We the People.
The death of democracy isn’t going to be good for any of us, no matter your politics. This is not at all what the founders envisioned for their fellow countrymen. It is, however, what the SCOTUS leash holders envisioned for themselves.