Three of South Carolina Republican members of Congress outperformed President-elect Donald Trump in their districts in Tuesday’s election, according to an analysis of unofficial results.
U.S. Reps. Nancy Mace, Russell Fry, Ralph Norman and Joe Wilson, and U.S. Rep.-elect Sheri Biggs all received a higher percentage of votes than Trump in their districts.
Mace, Norman and Wilson even received more votes in their districts than Trump. Mace outperformed Trump by 2 percentage points. Norman outperformed Trump by 3 points. Wilson outperformed Trump by 4 percentage points.
U.S. Rep. William Timmons ran about even with Trump in terms of percentage of votes, but received 8,000 fewer votes than the president-elect. There were 7,200 fewer votes cast between the presidential to congressional race, and the Constitutional Party candidate also received 9,700 votes in the 4th district.
In June, Timmons also survived a contentious primary challenge from former state House Freedom Caucus chairman Adam Morgan. Because the 4th District was not competitive in the general election, Timmons was able to campaign in swing-states ahead of the November election.
U.S. Rep.-elect Sheri Biggs, who will succeed U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan in the 3rd Congressional District, received 72% of the vote. Trump received 71%, but the incoming president had 4,000 more votes than Biggs.
About 9,900 people voted for a third party candidate in the third congressional district.
The similar vote shares in each district show the dominance in straight party ticket voting by the S.C. GOP.
Republicans beat Democrats on straight party ticket voting by 21 points, according to South Carolina Election Commission data.
“A great deal of the success that we have seen, not just in this election cycle, but in the past four election cycles here in South Carolina are attributed to our straight ticket Republican support here in this state,” said Drew McKissick, chairman of the S.C. GOP.
A Nikki Haley affect?
Mace had a better performance in the 1st Congressional District than Trump. The Lowcountry district is the closest South Carolina has to a toss-up district. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley even won the district in the state’s Republican Presidential Primary over Trump by more than 7,300 votes.
Mace outperformed Trump by more than 8,500 votes.
“How much of it was an anti-Trump thing and (voters) felt Mace was a little more moderate and some of those Nikki Haley voters who would vote for Mace but could never vote for Trump and much of it was how Michael B. Moore was particularly weak,” said Gibbs Knotts, the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Coastal Carolina University, who previously served as a political science professor at the College of Charleston.
In the 7th Congressional District, Fry and his Democratic opponent Mal Hyman saw a drop off in how many people voted in their race. Overall, 13,000 fewer people voted in the 7th Congressional District race than in the presidential race. The district has seen tremendous growth in recent years fueled by Republicans moving from Democratic states. So some of those voters may not have been familiar with the down-ballot candidates.
On the Democratic side, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Santee, ran close to even with the vice president. He received 59% of the vote in the 6th Congressional District. Harris received about 60% of the vote the district. However, about 9,000 fewer people voted in the congressional race than for the presidency in the 6th District.
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