• The South Carolina Republican Party intends to file a federal lawsuit to close the state’s primary elections.
• This legal action would require voters to register with a political party to participate in its primary.
• Currently, South Carolina has open primaries, allowing any registered voter to choose which party’s primary to vote in.

The South Carolina Republican Party is planning to file a federal lawsuit to change the state’s primary voting process and require voters to register to a political party.

South Carolina voters do not have to register by political party, and are able to vote in either political party’s primary. State Republican lawmakers have pushed for legislation to close the state’s primary elections, but they have been unsuccessful in passing it.

More: SC legislature considers moving congressional primary date which could cost $2M

South Carolina Republican Party leadership held a press conference at the statehouse in Columbia on May 12 to announce the new lawsuit related to closed primaries and required partisan voter registration.

SCGOP Chair Drew McKissick said that South Carolina political parties have the right under state law to define the terms of party membership and dictate who votes in their primaries. He said the law doesn’t offer the tool to enforce that policy.

“Many people who are not Republicans choose Republican nominees,” McKissick said. “That’s like allowing Carolina or Clemson fans to choose which players the other team puts on the field.”

Missouri’s top court is hearing an important legal challenge Tuesday to one of President Donald Trump’s earliest redistricting successes while lawmakers in Louisiana and South Carolina weigh whether to become the most recent Republican states to redraw U.S. House districts ahead of the midterm elections.

Rather than waning, a national redistricting battle that began 10 months ago has intensified as the November elections draw nearer — inflamed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened the federal Voting Rights Act and provided grounds for states to try to eliminate voting districts with large minority populations.

Missouri was the second Republican state after Texas to heed Trump’s call last year to redraw congressional districts to help the GOP win additional seats in the midterms. At issue before the Missouri Supreme Court is whether the new districts violate a state constitutional requirement to be compact, and whether they can remain in place for this year’s elections despite an initiative petition seeking to force a public referendum.

In South Carolina, the issue facing Republican lawmakers is whether redrawing the state’s lone Democratic-held seat could open the door to a clean sweep for Republicans or backfire with additional losses by making more districts competitive for Democrats. State senators must decide whether to allow consideration of a redistricting plan put forth in the House after the legislature’s regular work ends Thursday.

Congressional redistricting also is under consideration in Louisiana, where the Supreme Court’s recent ruling invalidated a majority-Black district as an illegal racial gerrymander. The state’s May 16 congressional primaries already have been postponed. What remains undecided is how many seats Republicans will try to pick up while redrawing the districts.

Alabama also is poised to switch its congressional districts for this year’s elections, after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned an order for it to use a map with two largely Black districts.

Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from new House maps enacted so far in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain six seats from new maps in California and Utah. The Virginia Supreme Court last week struck down a redistricting effort that could have yielded four more winnable seats for Democrats.

South Carolina weighs political risks of redistricting

A South Carolina House committee is to consider Tuesday whether to send a congressional redistricting plan to the full chamber for debate. The House also appears poised to pass legislation that could delay the June 9 congressional primaries until August to allow time for new districts to be enacted. That comes even as some absentee and overseas military ballots already have been cast.

But any redistricting effort also must clear the Senate, where support is less certain. Two-thirds of senators have to agree before the regular General Assembly session ends Thursday to let the legislature take up redistricting later.

Trump said on social media Monday that he was closely watching the redistricting vote, urging South Carolina senators to “be bold and courageous” and to delay the House primaries so new districts can be drawn.

Although Republicans have a supermajority in the chamber, several senators aren’t sure the proposed map guarantees the GOP will win seat held by long-serving Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn. And they think enough Democratic voters could be pushed into other districts that the plan could backfire, resulting in a 5-2 or even a 4-3 Republican split.

Some also question whether it is fair for Republicans to get all the seats in a state where the Democratic presidential candidate has gotten at least 40% of the vote every election this century, even if Trump is asking for the new map.

Louisiana GOP looks to target one or two seats

State Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican who oversees the Louisiana Senate committee tasked with redistricting, said his panel plans to vote Tuesday on a U.S. House map, with a full Senate vote expected Thursday.

The committee has several options, including versions that would leave Democrats favored in only one district or none. Kleinpeter said a map eliminating all majority-Black districts would be difficult to hold up in court.

Last Friday, dozens of people urged lawmakers to retain two majority-Black districts during a grueling nine-hour hearing that featured civil rights activists and the only four Black congressmen elected to represent the state since the end of the Reconstruction era.

Missouri map splits Kansas City district

Missouri currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats under a map passed by the Republican-led legislature after the 2020 census. But with Trump’s backing, Republican state officials adopted a new map last September that improves their chances of winning an additional seat by targeting a Kansas City district held by longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who previously was the city’s first Black mayor.

The new House map places portions of Kansas City in neighboring Republican districts and stretches the remainder of Cleaver’s 5th District far eastward into Republican-heavy rural areas. A state judge in March rejected an assertion that the map violates a constitutional compactness requirement, finding that the new districts on average are more compact — even if the 5th District is not. That was appealed to the state Supreme Court.

A separate case also being argued Tuesday at the state Supreme Court contends the new districts should have been automatically suspended in December when opponents submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures seeking to force a statewide referendum.

But Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway and Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins contend the new districts can be suspended only if — and after — Hoskins determines the petition meets constitutional requirements and has enough valid signatures. Hoskins has until Aug. 4, the day of Missouri’s primary elections, to make that determination.

A state judge in March agreed with the Republicans’ position while also ruling that the plaintiffs lacked grounds to sue and had done so too soon.

• Attorney General Alan Wilson is one of six Republicans campaigning for governor of South Carolina.
• Wilson’s platform includes improving education, infrastructure, and healthcare access while cutting government spending.
• Recent polling indicates a close race, with Wilson among the top candidates in the Republican primary.
• The gubernatorial primary is scheduled for June 9 to decide which candidate will advance to the November general election.

Attorney General Alan Wilson started his campaign visit to the Upstate on Monday, May 11, at the Clock of Greer restaurant, where he worked the drive-through window and spoke with diners inside.

Wilson, who has been in the governor’s race since late June, has spent the past 10 months traveling the state and connecting with voters.

Wilson is one of six Republicans running to be South Carolina’s next governor. His competitors are Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, U.S. Reps. Nancy Mace, District 1, and Ralph Norman, District 5, DOGE SC founder Rom Reddy, and State Sen. Josh Kimbrell, Spartanburg.

More: Republican candidates for governor talk gambling, abortion and energy

Wilson brought his campaign for governor to the Upstate, with less than a month left until the primary.

“You learn so much when you go on a listening tour,” Wilson said. “It’s not just about me telling people what I want to do as their governor. It’s about learning from people what they want their governor to do for them.”

Wilson’s campaign platform includes investing in education, improving infrastructure, cutting wasteful government spending, expanding rural healthcare access, and enforcing federal immigration law. After traveling the state, he believes affordability is a top issue for South Carolinians in this election cycle.

“There’s a lot of things going on around the world that we can’t control the price of,” Wilson said. “But there’s things that we can do as a state to react better to it.”

Wilson often polls as a top candidate that Republican voters would choose to support in the primary. A recent poll conducted by The Trafalgar Group, an Atlanta-based polling firm, reported that 23% of likely Republican voters would vote for him in the primaries.

The same poll found that roughly 25% of voters backed Evette, 20% backed Norman, 15% backed Mace, 10% backed Reddy, and 4% backed Kimbrell. Roughly 3% backed Jacqueline Dubose, a Republican candidate who has been disqualified from the primaries. The poll had a 2.9% margin of error.

Wilson said he is running for office to be accessible to South Carolinians and accountable for his actions. He said his experience as a combat veteran and as the state’s attorney general sets him apart from other candidates.

“I have a proven record of serving this state and a proven record of fighting for what people want,” Wilson said. “I believe I will be a great governor.”

The gubernatorial primary will be held on June 9 and will determine which Republican candidate advances to the general election in November. There are also three Democrats running: State Rep. Jermaine Johnson, Richland, Upstate business owner Billy Webster, and Charleston attorney Mullins McLeod.

Bella Carpentier covers the South Carolina legislature, state, and Greenville County politics. Contact her at bcarpentier@gannett.com