South Carolina State Senate Elections: Democrats Eye Multiple Districts
South Carolina Democrats are eyeing five Republican-held districts in this fall’s elections for the Palmetto State Senate – but they must also defend at least three potentially vulnerable seats. Meanwhile, a pair of entrenched Democratic incumbents occupying GOP districts near the capital city of Columbia, S.C. have drawn challengers – although it is not yet clear whether either candidate is in any real danger of losing their long-held office.
In addition to these races, of course, is the high-profile battle some Republicans hope to wage in an effort to take out S.C. senator Dick Harpootlian. An outspoken maverick, Harpootlian has drawn significant independent and GOP crossover support owing to his principled stands against crony capitalism and secretive spending within the state’s $30 billion annual budget.
As of this writing, Republicans control 27 of 46 seats in the chamber – well, to the extent you can call them “Republicans.” Can Democrats eat into that majority this fall? Or will the cycle wind up being a wash?
Democrats are pinning their hopes on multiple Senate districts in the Lowcountry region of the state – specifically a handful of swing districts in and around Charleston, South Carolina. This is the corner of the state where first-term congressman Joe Cunningham shocked the Palmetto political establishment with his upset victory last fall in a district that had been held by the GOP for nearly forty years.
Democrats picked up a pair of S.C. House seats in the Charleston area in 2018, and just this week they flipped a third seat with the emphatic victory of Folly Beach administrator Spencer Wetmore in a special election for S.C. House District 115 (.pdf). That seat had been held for the past decade by new U.S. attorney Peter McCoy, a Republican.
https://www.fitsnews.com/2020/08/12/south-carolina-state-senate-elections-democrats-eye-multiple-districts/
