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5 HISTORICAL FACTS that explain SC’s modern Democratic Party

Click a button to reveal an event that shaped the 150-year evolution of the Democratic Party in the Palmetto State.

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In the decade following the Civil War, the Republican Party controlled South Carolina politics and vaulted many African Americans into office. Wade Hampton III, a state senator before the war and a cavalry leader during the conflict, opposed Republicans' Reconstruction policies and its increasingly corrupt dealings. He ran against incumbent Gov. Daniel Henry Chamberlain in 1876, an election widely considered the most violent in state history. Hampton advocated “force without violence” and was open to black membership in the party. However, a pro-Democratic paramilitary group called the Red Shirts disrupted elections and suppressed black voters. When the balloting was over, both parties claimed victory. It took six months for the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Hampton the winner. He was reelected in 1878 and served until 1879, when he resigned to become a U.S. senator. Hampton’s election began a century of utter Democratic dominance in state politics.

Gov. Wade Hampton III’s election in 1876 begins century of Democratic dominance

Ben Tillman emerges as dominant force, secures Democrats’ power for decades

Ben Tillman’s political presence was first felt when he led the paramilitary Red Shirts during the violent 1876 state election. He rose to prominence, and eventually domination, while serving as governor from 1890 to 1894 and as U.S. senator from 1895 until his death in 1918. Though himself a wealthy landowner from Edgefield, Tillman came to oppose the state party’s “Bourbon” leadership, to which Wade Hampton belonged. Tillman waged populist campaigns for governor on a platform of agricultural reform. He also was a staunch white supremacist, and his legacy includes the state’s 1895 constitution, which disenfranchised black voters and ensured white rule for more than half a century. And white rule was largely exercised through the Democratic Party, which held every seat in the S.C. House of Representatives from 1900 to 1961 and the governorship from 1876 to 1975. Further evidence of the state’s one-party rule can be seen in the 12 presidential elections between 1900 and 1944 — the Democrat received at least 87 percent of the popular vote in each contest and more than 95 percent of the vote eight times.

“Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, S.C. governor and U.S. Senator. Library of Congress photo.

The longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history began political life in Edgefield County as a Democrat. After serving in World War II, he returned home and successfully ran for governor on a platform of greater government transparency and opposition to the “Barnwell Ring,” a faction of Democrats led by House Speaker Sol Blatt. Thurmond also exposed the widening gap between the state and national parties as the latter embraced African American voters. After several southern states bolted the 1948 national convention over civil rights planks in the party platform, Thurmond became the presidential nominee of the renegade States Rights Party. The “Dixiecrats” captured 39 electoral votes nationwide and 71 percent of the popular vote in South Carolina. Thurmond continued to be a renegade. He endorsed Republican Dwight Eisenhower for the presidency in 1952, prompting state Democratic Party leaders to block his nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in 1954. However, Thurmond ran a successful write-in campaign against against Edgar Brown of the Barnwell Ring. Increasingly at odds with the national Democratic Party, some of whose leaders were supporting the civil rights movement, Thurmond switched his affiliation to the Republican Party before a statewide television audience on Sept. 16, 1964. He served another 39 years in the Senate as a Republican.

Strom Thurmond started as a Dem, eventually helped hasten party's decline

In 1967, state Democratic leaders pledge to modernize party operations

In a report entitled “Party Organization and the State Headquarters,” Democratic leaders acknowledged their party’s hegemony was a thing of the past. U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond had defected to the Republicans. So had Congressman Albert Watson and his eventual successor, state Rep. Floyd Spence of Lexington. And Republicans were beginning to compete for an increasing number of local and state offices. The 1967 report urged party officials to shift focus from primaries to the general election and create better grassroots efforts for fundraising and vote organizing. The strategy didn’t reverse Republican momentum. However, the Democrats remained the majority political force for much of the next three decades, continuing to control both houses of the General Assembly until 1995, representing a majority of the state’s Congressional delegation for all but two years between 1968 and 1993. Party nominee Ernest “Fritz” Hollings also won six consecutive regular elections for the U.S. Senate, the first three with more than 60 percent of the vote.

During Gov. Richard Riley’s first term, the state constitution was amended to allow governors to serve two terms. He was reelected in 1982, making the Democrat the first governor to serve two consecutive, full terms.

SC party starts primary, becomes a factor in presidential electoral politics

Defections to the GOP diminished the party’s power but brought Democrats at least one silver lining: Remaining members more closely aligned with the national party’s platform (though not perfectly). And although South Carolina has gone Republican in all but one election since 1964, state Democrats remain a factor in presidential politics. The party held its first state presidential primary in 1992, and it proved momentous. Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas had won four of 11 caucuses and primaries — more than any other candidate — before South Carolina’s voters weighed in. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton had only one win in pocket, but the Palmetto State is where he would start his surge. He captured 62.9 percent of the vote here, then went on to win 32 more states, the Democratic nomination and the presidency. In 2008, South Carolina again played a role in a Clinton’s presidential aspirations — but this time helping to quash them. llinois Sen. Barack Obama won 55 percent of the vote, defeating former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. According to exit polls, more than 55 percent of the voters in that primary were African American.

5 HISTORICAL FACTS that explain SC’s modern Democratic Party