COLUMBIA, S.C. — Republicans will still run the South Carolina House when lawmakers return in January, but Tuesday’s election cost them the two-thirds supermajority they have held in the chamber, as Democrats picked up at least 10 seats.
The GOP went into the election holding close to 90 of the 124 House seats. Based on unofficial returns, the new House is expected to seat about 78 Republicans and 46 Democrats. A two-thirds majority in a 124-member chamber takes 83 votes, the threshold needed for steps such as overriding a governor’s veto.
Democrats contested every House seat this year, and their gains were spread out geographically, with flipped districts in York, Lexington, Greenwood, Dorchester and Clarendon counties.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which backs the party’s legislative candidates nationally, said in a statement that voters had pushed back against Republicans, pointing to the redrawn congressional map that eliminated a majority-minority district. House Republicans said on social media that they had kept their majority and were ready to get back to work.
The other chamber is unchanged in its balance for now. Republicans keep a 34-12 supermajority in the state Senate.
Several longtime House Republicans held on. House Ways and Means Chairman Bruce Bannister survived another tough general election challenge, according to results tracked by the Palmetto Promise Institute, a conservative policy group.
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