On Tuesday, May 12, five Republican state senators in South Carolina did something unusual: they voted against their own party’s redistricting push, denying the two-thirds majority needed to extend the legislative session. Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey acknowledged he’d likely face consequences from Trump and his allies. “I got too much Southern in my blood,” he said. “My conscience is clear on this one.”
Two days later, Gov. Henry McMaster overrode the Senate’s decision entirely. On the evening of May 14, McMaster issued an executive order calling the General Assembly back for a special session beginning Friday, May 15, at 11:00 a.m. The agenda: the state budget and “congressional districts.”
The special session changes the math in a critical way. The two-thirds vote that failed on Tuesday was a procedural requirement to extend the regular session. In a special session called by the governor, redistricting legislation needs only a simple majority — and Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers.
What Changed Between Tuesday and Thursday
McMaster had spent months telling reporters that redistricting was a bad idea and that the matter was up to the legislature. Massey has publicly said the governor told him as much in conversations over the past eight to nine months.
What changed was the pressure from above. Trump posted on Truth Social Monday night that he was “watching closely” and urged South Carolina Republicans to “BE BOLD AND COURAGEOUS, just like the Republicans of the Great State of Tennessee were last week.” He suggested moving the state’s congressional primaries from June 9 to August.
After the Senate blocked the measure Tuesday, the backlash from the right was immediate. Rep. Nancy Mace confirmed on May 14 that the White House had provided South Carolina Republicans with a proposed congressional map. Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette described the Senate’s vote as a “betrayal of the people of South Carolina” and in “direct defiance” of Trump. All four top Republican gubernatorial candidates — Evette, AG Alan Wilson, and Reps. Mace and Ralph Norman — criticized the failure to act.
The implicit threat was also clear: after Trump-backed challengers defeated five of six targeted GOP state senators in Indiana’s May 5 primary for opposing redistricting, the message to holdouts in other states was obvious. Tyler Bowyer of Turning Point USA’s political action committee posted that his organization would “hire people in any state to support the President and help him hold you accountable.”
The Map and the Target
South Carolina currently has seven congressional districts. Republicans hold six; Democrat Jim Clyburn holds SC-06, the state’s only majority-Black district, which he has represented since 1993. The proposed map, drafted by state Rep. Jordan Pace and reportedly refined with White House input, would dismantle SC-06 entirely.
The strategy mirrors what Tennessee did on May 7: take the state’s sole majority-Black congressional district and fracture it across multiple Republican-leaning seats. Tennessee split Rep. Steve Cohen’s Memphis-based district into three. South Carolina would scatter Clyburn’s district across at least four.
The Senate Holdouts
The five Republican senators who voted against extending the session on May 12 — including Majority Leader Massey and Sen. Tom Davis — objected on both practical and strategic grounds.
Massey warned that carving up Clyburn’s majority-Black district would “motivate Black turnout” and could backfire, potentially creating a 5-2 or even 4-3 Republican split instead of the hoped-for 7-0 sweep. Davis was more categorical, calling the process “constitutionally and practically indefensible.”
“There are likely consequences for me, personally, taking the position that I am right now. I’m comfortable with that. I may not like it, but I’m comfortable with it.”
— Shane Massey, SC Senate Majority Leader, May 12
But in a special session, those five votes may not matter. The two-thirds threshold that blocked the regular-session extension doesn’t apply. A simple majority — which Republicans have in abundance — is all that’s needed to pass a new map.
The Legal Backdrop: Callais and the VRA
South Carolina’s redistricting push is part of a national cascade triggered by the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais on April 29, which severely weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling struck down Louisiana’s majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and made it dramatically harder to challenge maps that dilute Black voting power.
Since Callais, the dominoes have fallen quickly: Alabama’s one-district map was cleared by SCOTUS on May 11. Tennessee signed its new map May 7. Missouri’s Supreme Court locked in its gerrymander May 12. Louisiana has paused its House primaries to pursue redistricting. Virginia’s Democrats filed an emergency SCOTUS appeal May 11.
South Carolina is the 11th state to actively pursue mid-decade redistricting — and the first where the governor has used executive authority to override legislative resistance within his own party.
Clyburn’s Response and What’s at Stake
Clyburn, 85, has represented SC-06 for more than three decades. He is one of the most powerful Black members of Congress in history — a former House Majority Whip whose 2020 endorsement of Joe Biden is widely credited with rescuing Biden’s presidential campaign.
After the Callais ruling, Clyburn warned that the decision “threatens to send our country deeper into the thicket of never-ending redistricting fights, with repeated aggressive map redraws, protracted legal battles, and relentless partisan tugs-of-war.”
If the new map passes and survives legal challenge, Clyburn would face the choice of running in a redrawn district that is no longer favorable to a Democrat, or retiring. The SC Democratic Party chair, Christale Spain, called the effort an attempt to “rig the 2026 congressional election.”
The Primaries Problem
South Carolina’s congressional primaries are currently scheduled for June 9 — less than four weeks away. Candidates have been running for months, spending money and talking to voters under the existing map.
To accommodate the new map, Republicans are expected to push a bill moving congressional primaries to August, while leaving all other state and local primaries on the June 9 schedule. The SC Election Commission has estimated the split-primary approach would cost approximately $2.5 million in additional taxpayer funds and create significant voter confusion.
The National Picture
South Carolina is not an isolated case. It is the latest front in a redistricting war that has reshaped the House battlefield in the span of six months.
* SC map not yet passed; special session underway as of May 15.
If South Carolina passes its 7-0 map, Republicans would gain one additional seat, pushing the net redistricting advantage to roughly +10 for the GOP. That could be the difference between holding the House and losing it in a challenging midterm environment where Trump sits at record-low approval, gas prices are above $4.20/gallon, and the generic ballot shows Democrats ahead by 10 points.
What to Watch
The special session began Friday, May 15 at 11:00 a.m. The House Judiciary Subcommittee took up the proposed map immediately. There is no set time limit on the session.
The key questions going forward: Will the five Senate holdouts maintain their opposition even under the lower simple-majority threshold? Will courts intervene before a new map takes effect? And will the primary be moved to August, or will lawmakers try to rush a map through in time for June 9?
The redistricting wars of 2026 have turned on whether Republican-controlled states will use every available tool to maximize their structural advantage before voters go to the polls. In South Carolina, the question has been answered: the governor overrode his own Senate to ensure the answer is yes.