While SC is seen as a deeply red state, it was solidly blue for decades. ...

It wasn't that long ago there were so few Republicans in South Carolina, you could hold a party meeting in a phone booth.

While that joke and similar versions of it — told for years by the people who grew the party — is an exaggeration, it's not far off.

That may be hard to fathom for newcomers to a state where

"It was almost, in the old days, like a cult, there were so few legitimate Republicans,"