Drew McKissick, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, speaks in support of closed primaries at the Statehouse in Columbia, S.C., on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — The state Republican Party plans to challenge the state’s open primary elections in federal court, arguing the party should be able to restrict who can select its nominees.
The lawsuit, which party officials said Tuesday they’ll file next month, comes after two bills that would have closed primaries stalled at the very beginning of the legislative session.
The proposals split the GOP caucus in the House, faced an uphill battle in the Senate and would ultimately receive a veto from the governor if they did pass, killing any chance they had of becoming law.
“This is the only alternative that we have left,” Republican Party Chairman Drew McKissick said Tuesday of the coming lawsuit.
Bills to close SC’s party primaries stall amid GOP ‘civil war’
In the legal challenge, which McKissick has said is coming for months, will argue the state’s open primaries violate the party’s constitutional right under the First Amendment to decide who it does or doesn’t associate with, McKissick said in the Statehouse on the last week of the regular session.
The goal is to stop voters who aren’t registered Republicans from voting in GOP primaries, he said.
Letting non-Republicans vote in primary elections is “like allowing Carolina or Clemson fans to choose which players the other team will put on the field,” McKissick said. “It doesn’t make any sense in football, and it sure doesn’t make any sense in politics.”
Two GOP candidates for governor, Attorney General Alan Wilson and U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, joined McKissick at Tuesday’s news conference in support of closing primary elections. Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace and Sen. Josh Kimbrell have all publicly expressed support for closed primaries as well.
McKissick stopped short of advocating for closing GOP primaries to only registered Republicans.
The state Republican Party has repeatedly thrown its weight behind a bill that would allow voters not registered as a Republican or Democrat to participate, but anyone who voted in a party primary would then automatically be registered with that party.
Before deciding how elections would work, the party needs to launch a successful legal challenge, McKissick said.
GOP candidate for SC governor demands closed primaries. Gov. McMaster threatens a veto.
“The bottom line is, do we have a constitutional right to demand from state government the ability to register by party, to enable us to make a decision?” McKissick said.
“The point is, we have no ability to even have the conversation right now, unfortunately, under state law,” McKissick added.
Closed primaries would shut the door on independent voters, potentially reducing the already-low voter turnout rates in primary elections, opponents of the proposals told legislators earlier this year. That became a major issue among Republicans, who worried about preventing people from voting.
Any plan that might require pre-registration, as the other bill discussed during that meeting would have, could also cause confusion among voters who have never had to declare a party affiliation ahead of an election before, opponents said.
Eight states have completely closed primaries, requiring all voters to register with a party, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Fourteen states aren’t completely open or closed but either allow parties to choose who can participate or require party registration but let voters switch for a primary.
South Carolina is one of 15 states that don’t restrict who can participate in its primaries.
“One thing I know for sure is the way we do it is the worst way,” McKissick said. “So, any improvement from there would be an improvement.”
South Carolina Republicans have tried suing over the state’s open primaries before.
The Greenville County Republican Party tried a similar tack in a 2010 federal lawsuit. A judge dismissed the case three years later, saying the county party couldn’t sue to close the primaries, though she didn’t make a decision on the actual legal argument.
Ironically, South Carolina’s lawsuit could hinge on a case arguing against the sort of closed primaries the party wants.
In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled state political parties have the right to decide who they do or don’t want to associate with under the First Amendment. That legal challenge came after the Connecticut Republican Party sued to allow unaffiliated voters to participate in its primaries, challenging the state’s law requiring closed elections.
Under that precedent, the Idaho Republican Party successfully argued it should have the right to ban anyone who wasn’t a member of the party from voting under the same part of the First Amendment. A state law passed after that 2011 decision allows the major parties to choose who can vote in their elections, leading to a closed Republican primary but an open Democratic one.
A similar lawsuit in Texas, arguing open primaries are unconstitutional, is ongoing.
Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
