By the time of the 1944 election, however, questions were emerging within the state Democratic Party following the landmark court case of Smith v. Allwright earlier in the year and support for black civil rights by incumbent Vice-president Henry A.

[5] Although the South did succeed in replacing Wallace on the ticket by border state Democrat Harry S. Truman, for some this was an inadequate compromise, and consequently a slate of “unpledged electors” were placed on the ballot in South Carolina[6] – in the process foreshadowing the Dixiecrat bolt that would begin in the following election to completely transform the state's politics.

Despite fears of what the national Democratic Party might do to the social structure of the South, FDR remained extremely popular in the region.

[6] Consequently, South Carolina was won by Roosevelt over New York governor Thomas E. Dewey by a landslide margin of 83.18%.

The unpledged slate of anti-Roosevelt Southern Democrats received a moderate 7.54% of the vote, doing best among the wealthy planter class in the lowcountry.