Editing Bamberg County, South Carolina (section)

=== Politics ===
Prior to 1948, Bamberg County and South Carolina were Democratic Party strongholds similar to the rest of the [[Solid South]], dominated by white Democrats. Most of the majority population of African Americans, who had supported the Republican Party during Reconstruction and the nineteenth century, had been [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised by Democrats]] under the 1895 state constitution and related laws. These raised barriers to black voter registration and voting in South Carolina, as did similar laws across the South. After excluding blacks from the political system, the white-dominated legislature passed [[Jim Crow]] laws imposing legal segregation. Most blacks did not recover the ability to vote until years after passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.

As a result of the exclusion of black Republicans, white Democratic voters controlled elections in this state and others of the former Confederacy for decades, creating the [[Solid South]]. They elected Democratic presidential candidates by nearly unanimous margins of victory, while preserving all the power associated with apportionment based on total population.

The twenty years from 1948 to 1968 were transitional years for the politics of South Carolina and Bamberg County. President [[Harry Truman]] ordered integration of the military and took other initiatives on civil rights issues. Discontented with that direction, Southern [[Dixiecrat]] candidates twice carried the county, and Republican candidates carried the county three times in this timespan, twice before many African Americans began to vote.

Following Congressional passage of the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]], as a consequence of the [[civil rights movement]], most African Americans in Bamberg County supported the Democratic Party, but they did not get to full voting strength in the county until after the [[1972 United States presidential election|1972 presidential election]], in which conservative whites carried the county for incumbent Republican President [[Richard Nixon]]. He had gained considerable support among whites in the South, a sign of what has become a nearly total shifting of their alliance to the Republican Party. In elections since 1972, the majority of county voters, with the enfranchisement of African Americans, have backed a Republican presidential candidate only once, voting for the popular incumbent [[Ronald Reagan]] by 16 votes.

{{PresHead|place=Bamberg County, South Carolina|whig=no|source1=<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS|title=Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections|last=Leip|first=David|website=uselectionatlas.org|access-date=March 13, 2018}}</ref>}}
<!-- PresRow should be {{PresRow|Year|Winning party|GOP/Whig vote #|Dem vote #|3rd party vote #|State}} -->
{{PresRow|2024|Democratic|2,376|3,245|73|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2020|Democratic|2,417|4,010|55|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2016|Democratic|2,204|3,898|112|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2012|Democratic|2,194|4,624|64|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2008|Democratic|2,309|4,426|79|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2004|Democratic|2,138|3,841|57|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|2000|Democratic|2,047|3,451|53|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1996|Democratic|1,715|3,380|217|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1992|Democratic|1,906|3,426|395|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1988|Democratic|2,403|2,830|22|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1984|Republican|2,908|2,892|31|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1980|Democratic|2,098|3,294|30|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1976|Democratic|1,849|3,330|37|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1972|Republican|2,537|1,680|36|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1968|Democratic|1,327|1,845|1,618|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1964|Republican|2,366|1,419|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1960|Republican|1,652|908|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1956|Dixiecrat|326|430|1,118|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1952|Republican|1,407|750|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1948|Dixiecrat|34|124|1,715|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1944|Democratic|106|737|198|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1940|Democratic|13|904|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1936|Democratic|5|1,542|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1932|Democratic|15|1,598|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1928|Democratic|4|779|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1924|Democratic|7|708|14|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1920|Democratic|0|688|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1916|Democratic|0|820|1|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1912|Democratic|3|616|1|South Carolina}}
{{PresRow|1904|Democratic|23|868|0|South Carolina}}
{{PresFoot|1900|Democratic|36|793|0|South Carolina}}