A panel of federal judges ruled that South Carolina legislators must redraw the state’s 1st Congressional District because the redrawn district was intentionally designed to eliminate Black voters to make the seat safer for Republicans, PBS reported.
Republican Nancy Mace won the district by one percentage point in 2020 prior to it being redrawn; in the 2022 midterms, she took the race by 14 percentage points. Democrat Joe Cunningham represented the term from 2019 to 2021, having taken the long-time Republican seat previously held by hiking enthusiast who took the Appalachian Trail to his lover’s house in Argentina Mark Sanford.
To accomplish their goal, state Republicans cut off a significant area of the district where mostly Black residents lived and put it into the state’s 6th Congressional District, a safe Democratic district served by stalwart Congressman Jim Clyburn. The Court ruled that the district must be redrawn before any further elections can be taken there.