GEOFF BENNETT: One of the more stunning upsets of last week's election was in South Carolina, where Democrat Annie Andrews defeated incumbent Republican Darline Graham in the U.S.

Senate race.

And that wasn't the only Democratic victory in the deep red state.

Democrats also flipped a U.S.

House seat and flipped 10 seats in the Statehouse, breaking the Republican supermajority.

Here to talk about why Democrats won and how they're aiming to build on that success is South Carolina's Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain.

Welcome to the "News Hour."

CHRISTALE SPAIN, Chair, South Carolina Democratic Party: Oh, thank you so much for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, South Carolina had been a Republican stronghold for decades.

What changed in this election?

What did Democrats figure out to do in this cycle that they hadn't been able to do before?

CHRISTALE SPAIN: One of the main things that we did this cycle was make sure that we recruited a candidate for every seat for the Statehouse.

Our Statehouse was up -- is up every two years, and we made a concerted effort to find, I think it was about 80-something candidates to make sure that no Republican went unchecked.

So we have 124 House members.

We had about 34 Democratic incumbents, and we filled every seat across the state with Democrats.

So I really feel like that was one of the biggest changes that we made as a party.

GEOFF BENNETT: What do those victories tell you about where the electorate is moving?

Are you seeing a genuine political realignment in South Carolina, or was this just a particularly favorable election for Democrats?

CHRISTALE SPAIN: You know, I want to say that we just -- the turnout showed that Democrats are all over the state.

One thing that -- we're still waiting on the actual election data to see actually get is the get the names of folks who voted.

But looking at raw numbers, one thing that we can tell is that Democrats collectively -- we look at the House district data, Democrats outvoted Republicans in all 124 House seats collectively.

So what that does tell us, number one, is that our state is completely gerrymandered.

If Democrats have more votes in those House districts than Republicans do, we do know that Democrats live everywhere and that Democrats will turn out and vote if you talk to them.

So I don't know if we just saw that -- a shift like you're talking about, but we do know that we Democrats can win when we run really good candidates, because not only did we break the Republican supermajority.

We had about 20-something candidates -- or 20-something races that were above 40 percent.

So our voters are there, and when they show up, we're able to do pretty historical things.

GEOFF BENNETT: And Black voter turnout in South Carolina was almost as high as it was in a presidential election.

What drove that level of engagement?

CHRISTALE SPAIN: You know, I just think that it was the attacks on Black folks.

We have been seeing that all across the country, from the White House all the way here to our Republican-led Statehouse, that they wanted to attack DEI, thinking that that means they're attacking Black folks.

And Black people decided to strike back.

So, when Black voters turn out, it really helps the Democratic ticket.

Like, Annie Andrews benefited greatly from the high Black voter turnout.

GEOFF BENNETT: And South Carolina is slated to lead the Democratic presidential nominating calendar in 2028, a position it hasn't yet occupied in a genuinely competitive race.

What difference do you think that will make in determining who emerges as the Democratic Party's next standard-bearer?

CHRISTALE SPAIN: You know, I think it's going to be a big deal.

I think it's going to -- it will probably be a difference maker.

I think that anybody thinking about running for president of the United States, number one, has to come to South Carolina, number two, has to sit with our voters.

They have to sit with voters all across the state.

We don't have huge population centers here in South Carolina.

Democrats live all the way from the Upstate all the way to the Lowcountry, where we flipped that U.S.

House race.

So they're going to have to be prepared to do the work of traveling the state, be prepared to do the work of talking to our voters and meeting them where they are.

I know we say that all the time, but to me that means going into communities and being OK with sitting in small rooms of four and five people.

You're not going to get big rallies and huge turnouts all the time, so you got to be comfortable talking to the people that show up to talk to you, and also be comfortable listening.

And I think the biggest thing that is going to be a change in this cycle, this presidential primary cycle, is that we have a huge number of Black voters here.

So anybody thinking about running for president is going to have to be unafraid to go into the Black community and to talk about issues that are unique to the Black community and figuring out what those solutions are going to be.

GEOFF BENNETT: Is the national Democratic Party investing enough in South Carolina and more broadly in the South and building out an infrastructure that could support a big win in 2028?

CHRISTALE SPAIN: You know, I think that our national party did a great job of trying to refocus the effort into the South and they.

And this DNC has done more with investing in the South than previous DNCs, but we can always do better.

And I'm committed.

I believe that our party is going to make that effort to really invest in the Deep South.

When I talk about the South, I want to make sure we're talking about the Deep South, the South Carolina, the Mississippi, the Arkansas, the uninvested South that people are able to see that we can win here when we did have less investment than the Georgias and the North Carolinas and the Texas, that we can elect a -- we can flip a United States Senate seat here that was held by juggernaut of a politician just in May of this year.

But now it's held by -- it will be held by a Democratic woman.

So I do believe that the party is moving to that investment.

We hadn't gotten there yet, but I'm confident that our party is going to make that national investment into the Deep South.

GEOFF BENNETT: South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain, thanks for your time this evening.

Appreciate it.

CHRISTALE SPAIN: Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate it.