"Tantamount to election" was for many years the standard phrase referring to the Democratic primary because few Republicans ever ran. Now the picture has almost reversed in Horry County and in most of South Carolina.

In the days of what was known as the "Solid South" for Democratic candidates, Republicans rarely contested state or local offices. The lively contests were in the Democratic primaries.

Today, races that probably will be decided, barring petition or write-in candidacies, include a state Senate seat and a handful of Horry County courthouse offices.

Political science professor Paul Peterson of Coastal Carolina University has seen the changeover happen since he came to Horry County in 1982.

"The real marker is the 1964 election," Peterson said, when U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond switched to the Republican Party, and Republican Barry Goldwater carried most of the Southern states in the presidential election.

In the 1960s and '70s, Peterson said, many South Carolinians voted Republican in presidential races but continued to identify with Democrats on the local and state level.

"The national Democratic Party really ran off the deep end in 1972 with the [George] McGovern campaign," he said, losing many South Carolinians and other Southerners.

Then, in 1980, "Ronald Reagan really solidified the Republican hold on the Deep South, and that continues in South Carolina," Peterson said.

Peterson, a Republican member of the Horry County Schools board, said a bigger change has come in just the last few years.

"Most of the time I've been here, east of the Waterway was Republican and west of the Waterway was Democrat, but that appears no longer to be true," he said.

"I think it's going to be that way for the foreseeable future," he said.

Just in the past few months, two local lawmakers jumped to the GOP: state Sen. Luke Rankin of Myrtle Beach and state Rep. John "Bubber" Snow of Hemingway.

Al Tirrell, who has been Horry County Republican Party chairman several times starting in 1979, foresaw the change.

"I knew it would happen someday; all we had to do was keep trying," Tirrell said. "I think the belief of the people here now is more in line with the belief of the Republican Party," he said.

But Tirrell doesn't think it has become a one-party system like the one under Democratic sway for so many years. Democrats have a viable U.S. Senate candidate in Inez Tenenbaum, and they won the governor's office in 1998, he said.

The situation means people need to pay attention to the primaries, but statistics show few do.

Voter participation in primaries ranges from 15 percent to 25 percent of the turnout in general elections, in a state with only about 50 percent of its residents even registered to vote.

Contact ZANE WILSON at 520-0397 or zwilson@thesunnews.com.