Columbia, SC · how this place’s counties split between candidates in each party’s presidential nominating contest, cycle by cycle. A primary is a contest inside one party, so it has no Democratic–Republican margin and is not part of the general-election record above.
Akashic reports votes cast, not delegates awarded. The two can disagree: Clinton led the 2008 national primary popular vote by less than half a point and did not win the nomination.
Primary returns are published at county grain and there is no roll-up above it. Each cell counts how many of this place’s counties a candidate led — a count of records, not a vote total. Who led the place as a whole is not knowable from these returns, because county rows carry a leader and a lead but no per-candidate votes.
Presidential nominating contests in Columbia, SC, by party and cycle.
○no contest record — Akashic holds no result for that party and cycle here. It is not a claim that no contest was held. Telling apart a contest that was cancelled, one that went uncontested, and one simply not yet ingested needs a nominating-contest calendar, which is a separate ingest from results and does not exist yet.
Republican presidential primaries are not yet ingested — the Republican series runs from 1856 and is in scope. The row is kept so its absence is visible: a Democratic-only panel would otherwise read as though no one else held a contest.
Akashic carries 10 states for 2012 and 3 states for 2024. Cycles in which an incumbent president seeks renomination are thin by nature — few states run a contested primary — so a sparse column is politics, not a hole in the record.
County returns carry a leader and a lead over the runner-up, and nothing more. The full candidate field with vote shares is published at state grain — follow a cycle above to the state contest for it.
voter registration
Registered voters
Total registered voters, over time
Registered voters
Voter registration in Columbia, SC
Year
Total registered
2016
514,538
2018
572,942
2020
614,208
2022
592,381
2024
599,493
domestic migration
Who moves in and out
Net domestic migration over time
+5,818 net domestic migration · 2025
20112025
Net +65,942 over 2011–2025 · gain loss
Domestic migration in Columbia, SC in Columbia, SC: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
+2,180
2012
+2,057
2013
+3,407
2014
+3,671
2015
+5,749
2016
+4,058
2017
+3,995
2018
+3,218
2019
+3,473
2021
+6,991
2022
+8,397
2023
+6,532
2024
+6,396
2025
+5,818
Columbia's Richland County core votes reliably Democratic while the fast-growing Lexington County suburbs have trended competitive, making the metro a reliable bellwether for statewide margin analysis.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 98.3 points in 1936 and a Republican high of 41.7 points in 1972. Between 2020 and 2024 the metro moved 5.3 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 0.2 points.
A population of 849,181, a 53% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $68,275 describe the metro. The metro's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Greensboro-High Point, NC and Memphis, TN-MS-AR.
Akashic
Political twins — metros
The metros whose fingerprint — 2000–2024 trajectory, demographics, ancestry, religion — sits closest to this one, and why.
Twin score (0–100) = weighted cosine between tier-standardized fingerprints: presidential margins 2000–2024 with 12-yr trend and elasticity, ACS income, age, education, population and race, top reported ancestries, and religious adherence — chips name the closest-shared dimensions and the widest gap. Re-weight the groups in the twins explorer.
Compare two places, side by side
Twelve curated comparisons line up election history, demographics, and the divergence story for two places at a glance. Browse all comparisons →
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All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
Columbia, SC, South Carolina. Akashic. https://akashic.app/cbsa/17900/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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How did Columbia, SC, South Carolina vote in 2024?
In 2024, Columbia, SC, South Carolina voted a near-tie (D+0.2), carried by the Democratic candidate. Out of 390,990 votes cast, 192,821 went Democratic and 191,991 went Republican.
When did Columbia, SC, South Carolina last vote Republican?
The most recent presidential election in which Columbia, SC, South Carolina voted Republican was 2004.
How many people live in Columbia, SC, South Carolina?
Columbia, SC, South Carolina has a population of 849,181 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Columbia, SC, South Carolina?
Median household income in Columbia, SC, South Carolina is $68,275 — below the national median of $80,734. The South Carolina state median is $69,324.
What is the political history of Columbia, SC, South Carolina?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Columbia, SC, South Carolina from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 20 went Democratic and 12 went Republican.
