Popular incumbent Republican Senator Strom Thurmond defeated Democratic challenger Charles D. Ravenel.

Senator Strom Thurmond faced no opposition from South Carolina Republicans and avoided a primary election.

Ravenel did not help his cause by his actions in the 1974 gubernatorial race when he refused to endorse the Democratic nominee after he had been disqualified.

Thurmond, having first been elected on a segregationist platform in the 1950s, had somewhat moderated his racial views in the 1970s, having hired African American staffers, championed grants to black colleges and businesses, voted in favor of extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and established scholarships for black students at four South Carolina colleges with religious affiliations.

In addition, Isaac W. Williams, the Field Director of the state's NAACP chapter, did not outright endorse him, but considered what Thurmond would do for the Black community in 1978 more important than his actions in the 1940s and 1950s, saying that "if voters just try to punish a politician for the sins of the past, what does it profit him to improve?"