South Carolina Republican Party

South Carolina Republican Party
Chairperson	Matt Moore
Senate leader	Hugh K. Leatherman, Sr.
House leader	Jay Lucas
Founded	1867
Headquarters	Columbia, South Carolina
Ideology	Conservatism Fiscal conservatism Social conservatism
National affiliation	Republican Party
Colors	Red
Seats in the Upper House	28 / 46
Seats in the Lower House	80 / 124
Website
www.sc.gop

The South Carolina Republican Party and the South Carolina Democratic Party are the two major political parties within the U.S. state of South Carolina. The South Carolina Republican Party is an affiliate of the national Republican Party and has been the most influential political party within South Carolina since the late 1900s.

South Carolina elections select officials for the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the local, state, and federal levels of government. The state legislature is composed of a Senate containing 46 elected officials and a House of Representatives with 124 members. On the federal level, citizens of South Carolina elect two senators and seven representatives to the United States Congress. The executive branch of South Carolina is headed by a Governor elected to a four-year term. The state has nine electoral college votes in Presidential elections.

The party is led by an elected group of state party officers, the South Carolina Republican Party State Executive Committee and paid staff. The state party organization is headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina.

The current state party officers and staff are:

The Republican Party of the United States was founded during the 1850s in response to the political tensions that revolved around slavery and came to define that era. The Republican Party's goal was to abolish slavery and preserve the hierarchy of the national government over that of the states. The ensuing years were marked by an increasing divide between northern and southern states that eventually boiled over when the state of South Carolina seceded from the Union in 1860. Other southern states followed and the Civil War of the United States began in 1861 between the Union and the newly minted Confederacy. In 1865, the conflict ended with the Union as the victor. Following this, the southern and formerly Confederate states were gradually reintroduced back into the Union of the United States with a process that came to be called the Reconstruction Era of the United States. Northern Republicans and freed slaves came to control the politics of South Carolina during this era, as Confederates were temporarily disenfranchised. The planter elite struggled to adapt to a free labor system. The Republican Party of South Carolina was established during this time and controlled the politics of South Carolina throughout Reconstruction. Democrats mounted increasing violence and fraud at elections from 1868 through the period, in an effort to suppress the black and Republican vote. In 1874 the paramilitary Red Shirts arose as a paramilitary group, working openly to disrupt Republican meetings, suppress black voting and return Democrats to power. The most violence occurred in counties where blacks were a strong minority, as Democrats tried to reduce their challenge.

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