The 1944 United States presidential election in South Carolina took place on November 7, 1944, as part of the 1944 United States presidential election. State voters chose 8 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.

For six decades South Carolina had been a one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party. The Republican Party had been moribund due to the disfranchisement of blacks and the complete absence of other support bases as South Carolina completely lacked upland or German refugee whites opposed to secession.Phillips, Kevin P.; The Emerging Republican Majority, pp. 208, 210 Between 1900 and 1940, no Republican presidential candidate had obtained more than seven percent of the total presidential voteMickey, Robert; Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972, p. 440 – a vote which in 1924 reached as low as 6.6% of the total voting-age populationMickey; Paths Out of Dixie, p. 27 (or approximately 15% of the voting-age white population).

By the time of the 1944 election, however, questions were emerging within the state Democratic Party following the landmark court case of Smith v. Allwright earlier in the year and support for black civil rights by incumbent Vice-president Henry A. Wallace.Jordan, David M.; FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944, p. 55 The liberal drift of the national party on economic issues also worried Southern White Democrats.Escott, Paul D. and Goldfield, David R.; The South for new southerners, p. 124 Although the South did succeed in replacing Wallace on the ticket by border state Democrat Harry S. Truman, for some this was an inadequate compromise, and consequently a slate of “unpledged electors” were placed on the ballot in South CarolinaBloom, Jack M.; Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement, p. 72 – in the process foreshadowing the Dixiecrat bolt that would begin in the following election to completely transform the state's politics.

Despite fears of what the national Democratic Party might do to the social structure of the South, FDR remained extremely popular in the region. His renomination was supported by over eighty percent of those polled in 1943. Consequently, South Carolina was won by Roosevelt over New York governor Thomas E. Dewey by a landslide margin of 83.18%. The unpledged slate of anti-Roosevelt Southern Democrats received a moderate 7.54% of the vote, doing best among the wealthy planter class in the lowcountry. , this constitutes the last election in which Lexington County voted for a Democratic presidential candidate. Thus, this is the last time Democrats swept every county in the state.Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016 This was also the first time that Dillon County voted less than 90% for any Democratic candidate.

Results

Results by county 1944 United States presidential election in South Carolina by county County Franklin Delano RooseveltDemocratic Thomas Edmund DeweyRepublican No CandidateUnpledged Southern Democratic Claude A. WatsonProhibition Margin Total votes cast # % # % # % # % # % Abbeville 789 96.34% 19 2.32% 11 1.34% 0 0.00% 770 94.02% 819 Aiken 2,403 91.26% 60 2.28% 167 6.46% 3 0.11% 2,236 84.80% 2,633 Allendale 678 94.43% 8 1.11% 32 4.46% 0 0.00% 646 89.97% 718 Anderson 2,687 90.23% 89 2.99% 201 6.78% 1 0.03% 2,486 83.45% 2,978 Bamberg 737 70.80% 106 10.18% 198 19.02% 0 0.00% 539 51.78% 1,041 Barnwell 1,482 98.41% 8 0.53% 13 1.06% 3 0.20% 1,469 97.35% 1,506 Beaufort 594 74.53% 108 13.55% 95 11.92% 0 0.00% 486 60.98% 797 Berkeley 521 72.77% 32 4.47% 156 22.77% 7 0.98% 365 50.00% 716 Calhoun 602 87.76% 1 0.15% 65 12.10% 18 2.62% 537 75.66% 686 Charleston 6,260 72.95% 1,184 13.80% 1,133 13.25% 4 0.05% 5,076 59.15% 8,581 Cherokee 1,620 94.13% 68 3.95% 31 1.92% 2 0.12% 1,552 90.18% 1,721 Chester 1,441 88.68% 89 5.48% 95 5.85% 0 0.00% 1,346 82.83% 1,625 Chesterfield 3,222 98.77% 15 0.46% 25 0.77% 0 0.00% 3,197 98.00% 3,262 Clarendon 1,053 81.69% 27 2.09% 199 16.21% 10 0.78% 854 65.48% 1,289 Colleton 1,653 82.77% 45 2.25% 289 14.97% 10 0.50% 1,364 67.80% 1,997 Darlington 1,808 91.41% 46 2.33% 119 6.27% 5 0.25% 1,689 85.14% 1,978 Dillon 864 86.06% 27 2.69% 90 11.25% 23 2.29% 774 74.81% 1,004 Dorchester 1,181 70.47% 65 3.88% 422 25.66% 8 0.48% 759 44.81% 1,676 Edgefield 654 92.24% 3 0.42% 52 7.33% 0 0.00% 602 84.91% 709 Fairfield 798 92.47% 21 2.43% 24 5.10% 20 2.32% 774 87.37% 863 Florence 2,822 87.86% 128 3.99% 238 8.16% 24 0.75% 2,584 79.70% 3,212 Georgetown 1,197 85.01% 52 3.69% 159 11.29% 0 0.00% 1,038 73.72% 1,408 Greenville 7,107 87.81% 711 8.78% 265 3.41% 11 0.14% 6,396 79.03% 8,094 Greenwood 2,381 88.64% 71 2.64% 233 8.71% 1 0.04% 2,148 79.93% 2,686 Hampton 575 67.65% 3 0.35% 271 32.00% 1 0.12% 304 35.65% 850 Horry 2,403 88.09% 137 5.02% 183 6.89% 5 0.18% 2,220 81.20% 2,728 Jasper 230 50.66% 18 3.96% 203 45.37% 3 0.66% 27 5.29% 454 Kershaw 1,872 94.98% 21 1.07% 78 3.96% 0 0.00% 1,794 91.02% 1,971 Lancaster 2,383 93.97% 13 0.51% 133 5.52% 7 0.28% 2,250 88.45% 2,536 Laurens 1,924 93.40% 38 1.84% 96 4.76% 2 0.10% 1,828 88.64% 2,060 Lee 764 87.31% 50 5.71% 60 6.97% 1 0.11% 704 80.34% 875 Lexington 1,986 93.68% 20 0.94% 106 5.38% 8 0.38% 1,880 88.30% 2,120 Marion 858 92.86% 9 0.97% 42 6.17% 4 0.44% 816 86.69% 913 Marlboro 874 89.27% 34 3.47% 57 7.25% 0 0.00% 817 82.02% 965 McCormick 307 86.72% 1 0.28% 71 12.99% 0 0.00% 236 73.73% 379 Newberry 1,940 82.80% 70 2.99% 321 14.21% 12 0.51% 1,619 68.59% 2,343 Oconee 1,316 87.85% 106 7.08% 67 5.07% 9 0.60% 1,210 80.77% 1,498 Orangeburg 2,440 90.61% 87 3.23% 159 6.16% 7 0.26% 2,281 84.45% 2,693 Pickens 1,662 67.34% 211 8.55% 505 24.11% 90 3.65% 1,157 43.23% 2,468 Richland 6,590 93.12% 140 1.98% 344 4.90% 3 0.04% 6,246 88.22% 7,077 Saluda 924 85.56% 14 1.30% 141 13.15% 1 0.09% 783 72.41% 1,080 Spartanburg 8,092 92.61% 402 4.60% 205 2.79% 39 0.45% 7,690 88.01% 8,738 Sumter 2,111 87.92% 73 3.04% 217 9.04% 0 0.00% 1,894 78.88% 2,401 Union 3,041 96.48% 33 1.05% 66 2.47% 12 0.38% 2,975 94.01% 3,152 Williamsburg 1,118 86.60% 27 2.09% 142 11.31% 4 0.31% 976 75.29% 1,291 York 2,637 94.48% 127 4.55% 20 0.97% 7 0.25% 2,510 89.93% 2,791Totals90,60187.64%4,6174.47%7,7997.90%3650.35%82,80279.74%103,382

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