The 1948 presidential election marked the winds of change as Strom Thurmond ran on behalf of the States' Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats).

[1] Nearly 100 years after the conclusion of the American Civil War (around 1949), the state was still preoccupied with racial tension, which muffled the debate about essentially all other issues.

In 1942, a party convention overwhelmingly voted to continue the all-white primary to prevent African-American influence.

[3] A major shift began in South Carolina politics with President Lyndon B. Johnson's Civil Rights Act of 1964, with whites switching to the Republican Party.

Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum ran as the Democratic nominee in the 2004 election and was subsequently defeated by Republican challenger Jim DeMint.