South Carolina Governor Hopeful Calls for Erasing Sole Dem House District

Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican running for governor, is calling for congressional redistricting to flip the Palmetto State’s sole Democrat district.

Flipping the seat, currently held by Democrat veteran and former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, would be nothing short of a sucker punch to the Democratic Party.

“We have Republican supermajorities in South Carolina. Let’s use them to create more competition in our congressional seats. I have no doubt Republicans can be successful in every part of our state,” Norman told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

Clyburn is known as a presidential kingmaker in South Carolina, having provided a much-needed endorsement of then-former Vice President Joe Biden in the state’s 2020 Democrat primary, at which point Biden had yet to win a primary or caucus.

The 85-year-old Clyburn was reelected by an over 23-point margin in 2024 in the 6th Congressional District, which covers much of Charleston and southern South Carolina. His district is almost half black.

Redistricting “will help increase Republican control of Congress and help President Donald Trump pass his agenda. Every vote counts toward a conservative [House] Speaker Mike Johnson, rather than a liberal Speaker Hakeem Jeffries of New York City,” Norman told Fox.

It appears Norman hopes there are no hard feelings, though.

“Jim Clyburn is a nice man, and I respect him. But he is a liberal Democrat who helped put Joe Biden in the White House,” he said. “That’s not the kind of representation South Carolina needs.”

Norman’s calls for redistricting come as Texas Republicans attempt to wrangle Democrats back to the state Capitol in Austin to redraw the congressional map and potentially add up to five Republican House seats in Washington from the Lone Star State. 

Clyburn’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In Missouri, a state with two Democrat congressional districts, GOP lawmakers have also issued a statement to Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe to initiate redistricting.

In Indiana, which has two Democrat-held districts, Republican Gov. Mike Braun has not ruled out redistricting either when asked about it.

In response, Democrats in California, New York, and Illinois have all threatened retaliatory redistricting of their own.