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Democratic party detects shift in county voters

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For decades, Beaufort County has been an ironclad Republican stronghold.

Residents, particularly in Bluffton, on Hilton Head Island and, more recently, in Sun City Hilton Head, have come out regularly in droves to elect Republican candidates at all levels of government.

But local Democratic Party officials hope Saturday's primary reveals a chink in the GOP's armor.

"It was an amazing election," said Blaine Lotz, president of the Democratic Club South of the Broad.

Lotz pointed to unofficial results that showed roughly 17,000 county residents voted for a Democratic candidate, way up from the 9,700 who voted for a Democrat in the 2004 primary.

Moreover, 17,000 votes is only 2,000 shy of the number of votes in the county for Republicans in their primary, held a week earlier.

Statewide, 532,000 residents voted in the Democratic primary, compared to 446,000 in the Republican primary, held a week earlier on a rainy -- and in some areas, snowy -- day.

Beverly Smith-Dore , chairman of the Beaufort County Democratic Party, attributed the strong turnout to get-out-the-vote efforts, especially those targeting rural areas of the county, and visits by the candidates to the area.

"The party was also successful getting all three candidates (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards) down and two of the candidates spouses (Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton)," Smith-Dore said.

"They knew the candidates and had an opportunity to interact with them."

Even in southern Beaufort County, the Democrats fared well.

At 10 precincts, including five on Hilton Head, four in Bluffton and one on Daufuskie Island, more people voted in the Democratic primary Saturday than voted in the Republican primary Jan. 19.

Local GOP officials said the dismal weather on the day of the Republican primary didn't help turnout.

Tom Hatfield, treasurer for the county's Republican Party, said that the cold rain kept some potential voters at home.

Hatfield also said a side-by-side comparison can't predict how voters will act in the general election, still more than eight months off.

"It's sort of like trying to compare apples and oranges," Hatfield said.

He said the Democrats' high turnout had a lot to do with voters having a clear choice between two front-runners: Clinton and Obama.

"If there had been two strong Republicans running against each other, we would have had a much higher turnout," Hatfield said.

Lotz, on the other hand, said the primary showed Democrats can compete in South Carolina, and that they can no longer be written off by the national party as too conservative to spend much time or resources on during a general election.

"I think national 'Dems' are going to say, 'Hey, I think there's something going on down there,'" Lotz said.

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