As the Dixiecrat presidential candidate, Thurmond won 71 percent of the state's limited electorate and every county except poor white industrial Anderson and Spartanburg.

[6] During the 1950s, the state's wealthier and more urbanized whites became extremely disenchanted with the national Democratic Party and to a lesser extent with the federal administration of Republican Dwight D.

[8] During the 1950s, wealthy textile mill owners in the upcountry developed a grassroots state Republican Party dedicated to the tenets of the John Birch Society.

[9] These wealthy businessmen would merge with hardline segregationists to draft Barry Goldwater for the Republican nomination in 1960 and join forces therein by the time of the next presidential election.

[13] Early polls in South Carolina gave a substantial lead to Goldwater, but by the end of October, the state was viewed as similarly close to the 1952 and 1960 races where the Democrats won by under ten thousand votes.