Will stopping 2026 map redraw catapult SC Dems to vote first in 2028 president primary?

The South Carolina Democratic Party hopes the defeat of congressional redistricting could help them secure an encore in voting first for the 2028 presidential nomination.

South Carolina Democrats pitched why they should be first-in-the-nation to hold the presidential primary. The presentation began Thursday with a state lawmaker telling the story of South Carolina’s failed redistricting effort, an attempt to oust powerful Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn.

“We have been through hell over the past two and a half weeks in South Carolina,” state Rep. Roger Kirby, D-Florence, told members of the Democratic National Committee Tuesday afternoon.

Kirby recounted to the DNC panel the last-minute push to redraw South Carolina’s congressional map weeks before the state primary election, an effort Democratic lawmakers opposed.

Democratic voters showing up to the polls for early voting helped defeat the effort Tuesday, Kirby said.

“South Carolina Democrats put out a clarion call to Democrats across the state of South Carolina to flood the polls, just like Martin Luther King came to Kingstree, South Carolina, to do,” Kirby said.

Of the record-breaking 56,407 South Carolinians who went to the polls Tuesday, nearly 46,000 chose a Democratic ballot, according to state Election Commission data.

Tens of thousands of South Carolinians standing in line to vote made several Republican senators flip against redistricting in 2026 on Tuesday afternoon. South Carolina Democratic lawmakers and candidates had encouraged residents to vote early the week before.

“The fight is on,” Kirby said. “This is not the time for you, the DNC, to take away South Carolina’s first in nation primary.”

The DNC’s rules and bylaws panel will eventually pick which states hold the first Democratic presidential primaries for the 2028 election. The panel chooses five states from the four regions of the country to be in the “early primary” window.

The early states in the primary are important as they will often go on to pick the parties’ presidential nominees.

South Carolina led off the Democratic presidential primaries in 2024. The state went fourth in the 2020 presidential primary contests but was the first that Joe Biden won on his way to the presidency, a fact the state party touts.

Biden also told a crowd of supporters in February that South Carolina picks presidents.

“Unlike any other early state, we have consistently identified and supported the party’s eventual nominee. No early state has a better track record,” said South Carolina Democratic Party chair Christale Spain.

Spain and Kirby gave the presentation Thursday afternoon, following several other states, including Virginia, Nevada and Tennessee.

Spain told the panel South Carolina can “battle test” potential candidates and allow Black and rural voters to set priorities for the party.

The party also flexed its ability to set its own primary date and rules, unlike other states seeking the first-in-nation status.

Other southern states support SC

Of the 12 states vying for an early spot in the Democratic Party’s window, five are in the south. Party chairs from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia endorsed South Carolina to choose the presidential nominee first, according to an SC Democratic Party news release and first reported by the Associated Press.

Before the state made its pitch to the DNC panel Thursday afternoon, the five southern states’ party chairs lobbied for South Carolina to hold the first presidential primary in a letter.

“South Carolina is not simply a geographic starting point,” the letter says. “It is a moral and political compass for our party and our nation. Its electorate reflects the true diversity of the Democratic coalition: a state where Black voters, rural communities, working families, veterans, labor leaders, and people of faith all have a seat at the table.”

Keeping the South first affirms the Democratic Party’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, the party chairs wrote.

Diminishing South Carolina’s role in the primaries “would signal to Southern Democrats and to Black voters in particular, that their loyalty to this party is taken for granted. We refuse to accept that, and we will stand firmly against it,” the letter says.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, also wrote to the DNC on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute to support South Carolina’s bid for the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. He pointed to South Carolina’s diversity and concentration of Black voters as its importance of staying first.

“South Carolina has earned this place,” Thompson wrote. “Its voters deserve this voice.”

Potential 2028 contenders are already flocking to South Carolina. U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear have speaking slots at Democratic Party events this weekend and Clyburn’s annual Fish Fry. Both have already visited South Carolina in the last year.

U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly made several stops around the state earlier this month, and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and Vice President Kamala Harris visited South Carolina this spring.

“We have 46 counties in South Carolina,” Spain said. “Our voters in 20 of those counties have already had the opportunity to meet potential 2028 hopefuls.”

This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Will stopping 2026 map redraw catapult SC Dems to vote first in 2028 president primary?."