Following the Reconstruction era, the white Democratic-dominated legislature passed Jim Crow laws, as well as a new constitution in 1895 that effectively disfranchised blacks, crippling the Republican Party in the state.

For most of the next 60 years, South Carolina was essentially a one-party state dominated by the Democrats, and blacks were nearly excluded from the political system.

Demographic and political changes have included the Great Migration of blacks out of the state during the Jim Crow era in the first half of the 20th century.

At the same time, many white Democrats felt chagrin at the national party's greater support of civil rights for blacks from the 1940s onward, and began splitting their tickets in federal elections.

In this configuration, it was a classic "Yellow Dog" Democratic district; from the end of Reconstruction until 1983, it only elected two Republicans, both for a single term.