WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal and state lawmakers in South Carolina will compete in primaries Tuesday that will include the latest clash in an ongoing feud with a former Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Voters will decide in nearly 90 contested primaries for the House of Representatives and both houses of the state legislature. Republicans are unlikely to face a threat to win those offices this fall, but a primary could further exacerbate a high-profile rift within the party.
Rep. Nancy Mace is running for a third term in the 1st Congressional District in the state’s Lowcountry on the Atlantic coast near Charleston. In 2023, she was one of eight Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives who broke with the party and voted to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker. Since then, McCarthy has used the weight of his political activities and fundraising skills against the defectors, backing challengers to oust them in their primaries.
In April, McCarthy’s political action committee, Majority Committee PAC, or “MC PAC,” donated $10,000 to Mace’s primary opponent, Catherine Templeton, the former director of the state’s unemployment agency under then-Governor Nikki Haley. Another committee, the American Prosperity Alliance, where a McCarthy ally serves as a senior adviser, donated to a group called the South Carolina Patriots PAC, which has spent more than $2.1 million to defeat Mace. The American Prosperity Alliance also donated to a group called the America Fund, which is one of the South Carolina Patriots PAC’s top donors.
McCarthy supported Mace for re-election in 2022, but since her election as speaker, their relationship has deteriorated rapidly. McCarthy told reporters in February that he hoped Mace “gets help to get her life in order. She has a lot of challenges to overcome.” Mace responded in a fundraising video that McCarthy had “lied to the American people” and was “a loser.” She called Templeton McCarthy’s “puppet.”
In addition to McCarthy, Templeton’s supporters include former Speaker Newt Gingrich and Representative Joe Wilson from the nearby 2nd Congressional District. Mace is supported by former President Donald Trump and current Speaker Mike Johnson.
Other key races on Tuesday include the Republican primaries in the state’s 3rd and 4th congressional districts. In the 3rd District, a tight field of seven Republicans is vying for the nomination to succeed Rep. Jeff Duncan, who announced in January that he would not run for an eighth term. In the 4th District, three-term Rep. William Timmons faces a challenge from Rep. Adam Morgan, the founder of the South Carolina version of the U.S. House Freedom Caucus. Voters in the 3rd District gave Trump 68% of the vote in 2020, while 58% of 4th District voters supported the then-president.
Further down the ballot are about two dozen primaries for the Senate and almost 60 primaries for the House of Representatives. All 170 seats in the state’s parliament are up for election in November. The Republicans have overwhelming majorities in both chambers.
Congressional elections employ the district boundaries that are at the center of an ongoing legal battle over representation of the state’s Black voters. In slow May, the Supreme Court upheld a Republican-drawn map that placed Mace in a significantly safer district than the one she was first elected to in 2020. A lower court ruled in 2023 that the map discriminated against Black voters by intentionally diluting their voting power.
Here’s a look at what to expect on Tuesday:
PRIMARY DAY
The South Carolina state primary will take place on Tuesday. Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.
WHAT IS ON THE BALLOT
The Associated Press will report voting results and announce the winners of 88 races, including nine contested primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives, 23 for the state Senate and 56 for the state House of Representatives.
WHO CAN VOTE
South Carolina has an open primary system, meaning any registered voter can participate in any party’s primary.
DECISION NOTES
In South Carolina, in primaries with three or more candidates, a runoff occurs if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. If the leading candidate in a race is near the 50% mark, the race may not be called until additional votes are counted. The AP will either declare the winners of races in which a candidate clearly received more than 50% of the vote or, if no candidate received a majority, declare that each of the two candidates with the most votes has advanced to a runoff.
In the 1st Congressional District, Mace’s voting record in her 2022 primary will provide a good benchmark when results are announced Tuesday night. This year, she and former state Rep. Katie Arrington each won three of the district’s six counties, with Mace winning the vote-rich Beaufort and Charleston counties and Arrington narrowly winning Berkeley and Dorchester. They split the two smaller counties.
The AP does not make predictions and will only declare a winner if it determines that there is no scenario in which the trailing candidates could close the gap. If a race has not yet been called, the AP will continue to report on any major developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory, while making clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explaining why.
In South Carolina, recounts are conducted automatically when the margin between the winning and losing candidates (or between the second-place candidate who qualifies for the runoff and a candidate who does not qualify for the runoff) is within 1% of the total vote. The AP can declare a winner in a race eligible for a recount if it determines that the margin is too gigantic for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
WHAT ABOUT VOTER TURNOUT AND PRE-SELECTION?
As of Wednesday, nearly 3.3 million voters were registered in South Carolina.
In the 2022 gubernatorial primary, voter turnout was 5% of registered voters in the Democratic primary and 10% in the Republican primary. About 29% of voters in the Democratic primary and 17% of voters in the Republican primary cast their ballots before Primary Day.
As of Wednesday, a total of 82,724 voters had cast their ballots before Primary Day, most of them through early in-person voting. About 15,000 votes were cast by mail, about 48% in the Democratic primary and about 52% in the Republican primary.
HOW LONG DOES THE COUNTING OF VOTES USUALLY TAKE?
In the 2022 primary, the AP first reported results at 7:21 p.m. ET, 21 minutes after polls closed. Election night counting ended at 1:14 a.m. ET, after more than 99% of all votes had been counted.
ARE WE ALREADY THERE?
As of Tuesday, there are 147 days left until the parliamentary elections in November.
