WEDNESDAY: How many seats could the Democrats win?

WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2026

New districts beneath the palmettos: South Carolina is known as the Palmetto State, thanks to the sabal palmettos.

Now that state is involved in a great civil war. Before too long, there may be new congressional districts beneath the stately palmettos.

Rep. Clyburn, look out! The New York Times starts to explain:   

South Carolina House Passes New Map Aimed at Forcing Out Clyburn

The South Carolina House of Representatives passed a new congressional map early Wednesday morning aimed at eliminating the state’s only Democratic seat at the urging of President Trump.

Among the proposed changes is a significant, Republican-leaning shift of the Sixth Congressional District, which is currently represented by James E. Clyburn, a powerful Black Democrat.

The map now heads to the State Senate, where some conservative members have been more hesitant to jump into the nation’s redistricting battles. Republicans already hold six of the state’s seven congressional seats, and some lawmakers have expressed skepticism about possibly unseating Mr. Clyburn, a power broker who has funneled vast resources into South Carolina over the years.   

Long story short:   

At first, it looked like the state's GOP planned to leave Rep. Clyburn's district alone. At present, the state elects six Republicans to the House, along with the venerable Clyburn as the only Dem. 

At first, it looked like the state's map would be left that way. Then, President Trump insisted on getting his way, and Rep. Clyburn's district may now get broken up, in the hope that the state GOP can capture all seven House seats.  

That said, a problem may exist. Let's start with a quick description of Rep. Clyburn's district. At present, the scorecard looks like this:   

South Carolina's 6th congressional district
Black: 46.8%
White: 41.6%
Hispanic: 6.2%
D+13 

According to the leading authority, it's a fairly common story:

"The district's current configuration dates from a deal struck in the early 1990s between state Republicans and Democrats in the South Carolina General Assembly to create a majority-black district," the leading authority says.  

In the early 1990s! That was the time when various states, reacting to 1982 amendments to the original Voting Rights Act, moved to create majority Black districts, with the two major parties generally working together on the project.

Today, Rep. Clyburn's 6th Congressional District is a "majority minority" district. (For the record, no other district in South Carolina is more than 25% Black.)

Also this, for future reference:

Following the 2020 census, the state moved 30,000 Black voters from Rep. Nancy Mace's neighboring district into Rep. Clyburn's district, thereby making it easier for Mace to hold onto her seat.   

Rep. Clyburn is a giant in South Carolina. Under current configurations, he serves the state's only plus-Democrat district. 

Now, the state GOP, bowing to Trump, is on the verge of breaking his district up—but uh-oh! Look what Rep. Clyburn said when this idea hit the fan

‘Careful What You Pray For’: Jim Clyburn Warns GOP Redistricting Could Blow Up In Their Faces and Help Democrats

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) cautioned House Republicans should “be very careful” what they “pray for” as he claimed redistricting efforts in his state of South Carolina had opened the opportunity for three Democratic candidates to get elected.

The congressman appeared on CNN’s State of the Union to speak with anchor Jake Tapper who raised the “gerrymandering wars” that had begun across multiple states ahead of the midterms, “kicked off” by President Donald Trump’s push for Texas redistricting in 2024.  

[...]

“All I’m going to say to that is be very careful what you pray for,” [Clyburn] added. “Because what I do believe is that when they finish with the redistricting, there will be the possibilities of at least three Democrats getting elected here in South Carolina to the United States Congress.”

Say what? According to Clyburn, if the state's Republican poohbahs remove a bunch of Democratic voters from some new version of District 6, they could end up flipping election outcomes in two of the neighboring districts to which they had been moved. 

The state could end up with three Democratic House members, not the current one!   

Did Rep. Clyburn really mean that? Did he really believe that could happen?   

We don't know the answer to that. But soon thereafter, the Republican majority leader of the South Carolina Senate warned his colleagues that South Carolina Democrats could end up winning two House seats if Clyburn's district was reconfigured.

Disappointingly, David French wrote a column praising that solon as a type of "good government" hero. He failed to mention the stated partisan reason behind the solon's rejection of the redistricting proposal.  

What will happen if redistricting proceeds in the Palmetto State, as now seems possible? Especially in the current environment, is it possible that Palmetto Democrats could win two or three House seats, instead of the current one? 

We don't know the answer to that, but this turn of events helps lead to the not-so-secret political history of the way the two major parties cooperated in the 1990s, creating new majority Black districts and thereby increasing the number of Black congressional reps.   

People, why did Republicans want to cooperate in that historic undertaking? That's the not-so-secret story Carl Hulse told in a recent retrospective in the New York Times. 

We've seen no one else recall this part of our recent history in this convoluted, confusing area. 

Back in the 1990s, why did Republicans want to create those districts?  Tomorrow, we'll visit what Hulse wrote about this long, winding road.