2020 United States presidential election in South Carolina

The 2020 United States presidential election in South Carolina was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States elections in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. South Carolina voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. South Carolina has nine electoral votes in the Electoral College.
Trump carried South Carolina by a margin of 11.68%, down from his 14.27% four years earlier. Prior to this election, all 12 news organizations considered this a state Trump would win, or a red state.
Trump performed somewhat better than polls anticipated, as aggregate polls averaged him only 7 points ahead of Biden. In addition, he flipped Clarendon County for the first time since 1972 and Dillon County for the first time since 1988. Per exit polls by the Associated Press, Trump's strength in South Carolina came from white, born-again/Evangelical Christians, who supported Trump by 87%–9%. South Carolina is part of the Bible Belt, which extends across the Southern United States, and has been tethered to the Republican Party since Richard Nixon's southern strategy. As is the case in many Southern states, there was a stark racial divide in voting for this election: whites supported Trump by 69%–29%, while African-Americans supported Biden by 92%–7%.
Primary elections.
Canceled Republican primary.
On September 7, 2019, the South Carolina Republican Party became one of several state GOP parties to officially cancel their respective primaries and caucuses. Donald Trump's re-election campaign and GOP officials have cited the fact that Republicans canceled several state primaries when George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush sought a second term in 1992 and 2004, respectively; and Democrats scrapped some of their primaries when Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were seeking reelection in 1996 and 2012, respectively.
In response to the cancellation, former U.S. Representative Bob Inglis and another South Carolina Republican voter filed a lawsuit against the South Carolina Republican Party on grounds that it denied their right to vote. On December 11, 2019, a state court judge dismissed the lawsuit, writing in his opinion that the law "does not give plaintiffs a legal right to presidential preference primary". Thus at the South Carolina State Republican Convention in May 2020, the state party will formally bind all 50 of its national pledged delegates to Trump.
Democratic primary.
The South Carolina Democratic primary was held on February 29, 2020.
General election.
Polling.
Graphical summary
Aggregate polls
Polls