California Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D) trip to South Carolina this week, a visit that has generated many headlines, comes a little more than six years after California government workers were banned from traveling on official business to the Palmetto State in accordance with a law signed by Newsom. While South Carolina is on the other side of the country, many former Californians now call it home, with tens of thousands having moved from the Golden State to South Carolina during Newsom’s time as governor.

South Carolina topped the U-Haul Growth Index for the first time ever last year, meaning it was the number one destination from one-way movers who used U-Haul. “Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee round out the five leading growth states,” U-Haul noted in a statement about the 2024 index release, adding that “California experienced the greatest net loss of do-it-yourself movers in U-Haul equipment and ranks 50th for the fifth consecutive year.”

According to Census data, South Carolina had the nation’s highest rate of population growth through domestic migration in 2024, while California once again lost population due to net domestic outmigration. During his interactions reporters in South Carolina, Gavin Newsom was never asked to explain why he thinks his state is losing so many residents to South Carolina and other red states.

“Texas (85,267), North Carolina (82,288) and South Carolina (68,043) saw the largest gains from domestic migration, while California (-239,575), New York ( -120,917) and Illinois (-56,235) experienced the largest net domestic migration losses between 2023 and 2024,” the Census Bureau explained in a statement. The only reason California’s population didn’t shrink last year is because of international migration.

Asked about a prospective Newsom White House bid, Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters “I feel good about his chances.” South Carolina Republican Party chair Drew McKissick didn’t share Clyburn’s sentiment, suggesting that Newsom might’ve come to South Carolina “looking for voters who left California due to high taxes, government over-regulation, and woke insanity.”

South Carolina and California’s contrasting approaches to public policy and governance are instructive, particularly to the extent that they are indicative of the ideologies and preferences that differentiate the two major political parties. On fiscal policy, South Carolina has a top marginal income tax rate of 6.2% that will fall to 6% at the end of 2025, down from 7% only three years ago. While that is a relatively high rate compared to other southeastern states, South Carolina’s top rate is less than half of California’s 13.3% top marginal income tax rate, which is the nation’s highest.

What’s more, though South Carolina’s top income tax rate is high relative to neighboring states, legislators in Columbia are working to make sure that won’t be the case much longer. The South Carolina House approved tax reform legislation this spring that will move the state to a 1.99% flat tax in the next five years and then fully phase it out over the subsequent five years. The South Carolina Senate will take up that reform in January. Meanwhile, in California not only is income tax relief not on the agenda, Gavin Newsom was the only governor in the country to raise income taxes on businesses during the depths of the pandemic-driven economic downturn of 2020. Newsom did, however, recently approve tax breaks for movie producers.

Aside from tax policy, California and South Carolina take diametrically opposed approaches on labor, energy, and other key policy areas. While South Carolina is a Right-to-Work state where workers cannot be forced to join a union as a condition of employment, coerced unionization is a reality in California.

In addition to tax rates, utility bills and gas prices are also much higher on average in California than in South Carolina. California’s relatively high energy prices are driven, in part, by progressive policy preferences, such as the imposition of the nation’s first cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions.

Dick Harpootlian, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman who also served in the state senate, told the Los Angeles Times that “Newsom would find it hard to find a foothold in many places in South Carolina.”

“If he had a track record of solving huge problems like homelessness, or the social safety net, he’d be a more palatable candidate,” Harpootlian said of Newsom’s prospects as a White House contender. “I just think he’s going to have a tough time explaining why there’s so many failures in California.”

Gavin Newsom visited South Carolina to bolster local Democrats, which also helps lay groundwork for a potential White House bid should the California governor decide to launch one. Newsom didn’t use this week’s trip to South Carolina to offer his theory on why South Carolina is attracting so many new residents while California continues to lose population to other states, but the topic will remain a timely one for a local reporter to raise should the California governor return.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) – South Carolina’s Republican leadership is praising the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill.

While the benefits could help grow certain sectors of the economy, others are expected to be hurt.

Perhaps the largest hit from the bill is its impact on those who rely on federal health insurance. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates nearly 11 million people are expected to be dropped from Medicaid programs by 2034.

In South Carolina, about 37% of insured people are enrolled through Medicaid or Medicare. Maya Pack at the South Carolina Institute of Medicine and Public Health says the good news is that South Carolina is somewhat insulated from the worst parts of the bill.

“Anyone who’s currently enrolled in our state’s Medicaid program, there are no immediate changes, and I think that’s the most important thing for folks to know,” Pack said. “Because our state has not chosen to expand Medicaid as allowed under the Affordable Care Act of 2010, our state is actually not going to receive the negative impacts to our Medicaid programs’ budgets nearly to the same extent that other states are.”

In the long run, however, KFF, an independent health policy resource, estimates South Carolina’s uninsured population will grow by about 230,000 people over the next 10 years.

Health care in rural communities is already strained. Kevin Bennett, the director of the SC Center for Rural & Primary Healthcare at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, says rural health systems are in a fragile state. Bennett says not only will there be more uninsured people walking through the door, but changes to reimbursements mean providers will be able to collect less money from insurers.

“Larger systems, the Prismas of the world, have more resources to absorb that,” Bennett said. “Smaller hospitals, smaller providers and clinics are going to really suffer. A 2% reduction in revenues might be enough to put them under, and that’s what we’re afraid of.”

Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette responded to questions on Wednesday about how the state will adjust to make sure hospitals won’t close in rural areas, like Williamsburg County, where nearly 28% of the population is covered by Medicaid.

“In the One Big Beautiful Bill, we’ve heard it talked about that, you know, Medicaid will be cut for illegal immigrants here in this country,” Evette said, dodging the question. “President Trump has been very clear that Medicaid was intended for citizens. Taxpayers want to know that their tax dollars are being spent wisely.”

It was already illegal for undocumented immigrants to receive Medicaid or Medicare. The OBBBA now prohibits benefits for individuals with lawful immigration status. These are legal workers who have paid taxes in the U.S. for decades.

Making the situation worse, inaction in Washington could also spell trouble for those covered by Marketplace plans. Pack says the Affordable Care Act Enhanced Premium Tax Credits are set to expire at the end of the year. Unless Congress passes an extension for those tax credits, Pack says thousands could lose coverage.

She says there are nearly half a million people in this state on a marketplace plan.

“And over 95% of those folks are receiving a tax subsidy to be able to afford their premium costs. And so with the expiration of these tax credits, we fear that many of those people will no longer be able to afford that insurance coverage.”

Pack says there are changes to health insurance every year, making it difficult to predict exactly what will happen. She says we will certainly see more uninsured people in the coming years.

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