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by WILL FOLKS
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Democrats dominated early voting ahead of the June 9, 2026 partisan primary election in South Carolina – although the GOP reclaimed its edge at the polls on primary day.
In the run-up to this coming Tuesday’s runoff elections, it’s the GOP running away with the early voting edge…
As we previously reported, a whopping 188,006 of South Carolina’s 319,580 early primary voters – or 58.8% of the early-voting electorate – participated in the Democrat primary earlier this month. By contrast, 131,574 South Carolinians – or 41.2% of early voters – participated in the GOP primary.
That massive edge didn’t hold up on election day, though. All told, 856,005 voters – or 25.3% of the electorate – participated in one of the two partisan primaries. On the races at the top of the ticket – including governor and U.S. Senate – the GOP wound up enjoying a significant edge. A total of 472,956 voters participated in the Republican gubernatorial primary, compared to 371,993 who voted in the Democrat gubernatorial election.
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All told, 55.97% of gubernatorial primary voters chose one of the six Republican candidates compared to 44.03% who voted for one of the three Democrats in the race.
Because no Republican won a majority of ballots cast, the top two finishers in that race – lieutenant governor Pamela Evette and attorney general Alan Wilson – advanced to a runoff election on Tuesday (June 23, 2026). There are also GOP runoff elections for attorney general and agriculture commissioner, as well as a heated first congressional district battle between Charleston County councilwoman Jenny Costa Honeycutt and S.C. state representative Marvin “Mark” Smith.
Democrats have no statewide runoff elections this year because all of their candidates – including gubernatorial nominee Jermaine Johnson and U.S. Senate nominee Annie Andrews – won more than fifty percent of the vote on the first ballot.
There are two competitive congressional elections that advanced to runoffs on the Democrat side, though.
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It’s little surprise, then, that the two-day early voting period held last week ahead of the runoff races accrued decidedly to the GOP’s favor. According to data compiled by the S.C. State Election Commission (SCVotes), of the 75,524 voters who cast ballots last Wednesday and Thursday (June 17-18, 2026), 63,184 of them – or 83.66% – participated in the GOP runoff.
By contrast, only 9,288 (or 12.3%) voted in the Democrat runoff.
Early-voting Republicans turned out in droves in Greenville (8,125), Horry (5,538), Spartanburg (5,043) Charleston (4,224), Anderson (3,610), Lexington (3,247) and Berkeley (3,102) counties for the runoff races – with Pickens (2,815), Richland (2,764) and Beaufort (2,411) not far behind.
Who will benefit from all these early ballots? We’ll find out Tuesday evening… although polls and prediction markets seem to be speaking with one voice as it relates to the GOP gubernatorial contest.
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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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