Preliminary vote from Saturday, February 24, 2024, South Carolina Republican primary. Major metropolitan areas have over 1 million residents. Medium-sized metros have 250,000 to under 1 million residents. Small metros have under 250,000 residents. Nonmetropolitan counties are defined as rural. (County classifications, 2013 OMB)

In his South Carolina primary victory Saturday, former President Donald Trump racked up his biggest margins in rural and suburban areas, a Daily Yonder analysis shows.

Trump won the statewide Republican contest by a 20-point margin over Nikki Haley, South Carolina’s former governor and former ambassador to the United Nations.

Trump’s largest margin of victory came in the state’s rural (nonmetropolitan) counties, where he earned 69% of the vote compared to Haley’s 31%, a margin of 38 points. 

Trump also won landslide victories in the suburban counties of large and medium-sized metropolitan counties. 

In South Carolina’s three major-metropolitan counties in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump won by 20 points, 60%-40%.

In the suburbs of medium-sized metropolitan areas, Trump defeated Haley 64% to 36%, a 28-point margin. 

Haley lost by smaller margins in the core counties of medium-sized metropolitan areas and in small metropolitan areas. In those categories of counties, Trump won by the same margin, 12 points (56% to 44%).

South Carolina’s 18 medium-sized metropolitan counties are the electoral base of the state. Those counties constituted 70% of the turnout Saturday. The principal cities of these metropolitan areas are Charleston, Greenville, Myrtle Beach, Columbia, and Spartanburg.

Definitions

The Daily Yonder analysis uses the 2013 Office of Management and Budget Metropolitan Statistical Areas to define rural.

  • We define counties that are not located within a metropolitan area as rural. Twenty of the state’s 46 counties fall in this category (12% of turnout Saturday). Under the OMB’s 2013 system, nonmetropolitan counties don’t have a city of 50,000 or greater and don’t have close economic ties to a county that does have a city of 50,000 or greater.
  • Major metropolitan suburbs are the outlying counties of metros with a population of over 1 million (8% of turnout).
  • Medium-sized metropolitan core counties are the central counties of metros with a population of 250,000 to under 1 million (41% of turnout).
  • Medium-sized metropolitan suburbs are the outlying counties of metros with a population of 250,000 to under 1 million (29% of turnout).
  • Small metropolitan areas include all counties in metros of fewer than 250,000 residents. (10% of turnout).

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.