Greenville County's 2026 Election by the Numbers: Turnout, Straight-Ticket Voting and Precincts

How did Greenville County voters show up in the 2026 general election? Simple Civics looks past who won to what the voter data says about our county's civic health.

Katy and Nathaniel walk through the latest numbers from the South Carolina Election Commission and Greenville County elections, comparing the 2026 midterm with 2022 and the 2024 presidential election, and close with what Simple Civics' election coverage reached this cycle and what comes next with the 2027 municipal elections.

Turnout reached 62.1% of registered voters, up nearly 10 points from the 2022 midterm. Katy explains how straight-party voting works in South Carolina, one of only six states that still offers it, and how its use and allocation shifted this year. And they map the precincts where turnout jumped, where nearly 7,500 new voters registered, and the urban precincts where registrations declined.

Resources:

• Greenville County precinct map (SC Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office)

• Greenville County 2026 General Election results by precinct (SC Election Commission)

How Greenville County voted in the 2026 election

Katy Smith: When the dust settles after an election, nearly every headline is focused on the same question: who won? Here at Simple Civics Greenville County, we're taking a step back to look at the election from a different perspective: us, the voters. How did our community show up, and what does the data tell us about our local civic health? If this were a report card, Greenville County brought home some impressive grades.

I'm Katy Smith with Greater Good Greenville, and on this episode of Simple Civics Greenville County, Nathaniel DeSantis and I dig into the latest numbers from the South Carolina Election Commission and Greenville County elections to break down our community's performance at the ballot box in the November 3rd, 2026 General Election. Take a listen to hear how your neighborhood showed up and learn what the voter data reveals about the evolving map of our county.

Nathaniel DeSantis: Welcome back everyone to another episode of Simple Civics, Greenville County. I am Nathaniel and I am here today with Katy, and today we're gonna do a bit of a post-game analysis of the 2026 election. But we aren't talking about who won or lost, because I'm sure you're very, very well aware of that if you keep up with the news, but we're talking about us, the voters. Katy, you've been looking through the latest data from the South Carolina Election Commission. How did we do?

Katy Smith: We did great, Nathaniel. If this were a civic report card, we brought home some solid grades this year. And like Nathaniel said, we assume that because you are civically engaged, you paid attention to who won and lost nationally and right here in Greenville County. And we are not a politics podcast, so that's not something we're getting into. We're interested in civic health, so we want to look at how Greenville County showed up to the polls. And the underlying data tells a fascinating story about engagement and how our county is physically shifting.

Midterm turnout compared to 2022 and 2024

Nathaniel DeSantis: And so with that in mind, let's start with the macro view. 2026 was a midterm year, meaning a general election year when the president is not on the ballot. These midterm years historically have lower voting turnout than presidential years, and probably for very obvious reasons, the presidential elections are a whole different can of worms. So for these midterms, though, how did our turnout in Greenville County compare to the last midterm in 2022?

Katy Smith: It was a, in my opinion, a massive leap. Overall voter participation in Greenville County in 2026 landed at 62.1% of registered voters, which is a nearly 10-point increase from the 2022 midterm turnout of 52.5%. That is a big jump in terms of midterm elections.

Nathaniel DeSantis: As I mentioned, presidential years always pull the biggest crowd. So how did this compare to 2024?

Katy Smith: As expected, participation did drop from the 2024 presidential peak of 77.8%. But really maintaining a pretty elevated baseline of over 62% shows we had a high midterm electorate retention. People who got engaged in 2024 largely stayed engaged in 2026, and we had some areas that people got really activated in a way that they weren't in the presidential.

Nathaniel DeSantis: 77.8% is a lot for the presidential peak, but to have a baseline of over 62%, that's incredible. That's like really high. That's awesome. Did that extra engagement translate into how people filled out their ballots? Straight party voting is always probably the most popular option in South Carolina, I'd assume.

How straight-party voting works in South Carolina

Katy Smith: Yeah, it is. And straight ticket voting underwent a significant shift in 2026. So first, let's just talk about straight party voting, which means your election ballot allows you to push one button that preselects all the candidates from that party on your ballot. And if you voted, you saw that. That was the first question there of which of the parties do you want to vote for, and it listed all the candidates who were there. You're probably thinking of Democrat, Republican, but we had Libertarian, Green Party, Constitution, et cetera. So in the United States, only 12% of our states, six out of 50, offer straight ticket or straight party voting on general election ballots. And if you're curious, they are Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, which was just recently reinstated by voters in 2018, Oklahoma, and us here in South Carolina.

And that straight ticket voting was once common, or commonish, across the United States in the mid-20th century. More than half of all states offered that option. Over the past few decades, most states have repealed it to encourage voters to evaluate individual candidate races. And it kind of ensures that you participate in those nonpartisan down-ballot races and referendums. Here in Greenville County, many of you had a school board candidate on your ballot, which was nonpartisan. You had some penny tax questions, which were obviously nonpartisan. So recently, Texas repealed straight party voting. Utah did as well in 2020. Pennsylvania did, and Iowa did. So here in South Carolina, though, it persists. And remember, we don't register to vote by party, but voting for candidates from a single party is that first choice.

And just over 60% of this year, 2026's, general election voters in Greenville County chose to vote straight party. In 2024, it was 51% of voters, and in 2020, it was 50% of voters. So that's a 10-point swing to favor straight party voting from the last presidential election to this year. We also saw a big change in how those straight party votes were allocated. Here in Greenville County, which is not a surprise to anyone, our straight party votes have traditionally been more Republican, at least in recent years. In 2022, 68% of all those straight party voters chose Republicans, which slightly dropped in 2024 to 63.5%.

But this year it dropped another nine points to 54.5%. And then conversely, in 2022, 30.5% of straight party voters chose Democrats, which climbed to 35.8 in 2024, and this year was 44.9% chose Democrats. That's a nine-point swing to the positive. And like I said, we don't talk politics here, but it's a pretty substantial data point here in Greenville County that it felt worth noting to you all.

Precincts with the biggest turnout gains

Nathaniel DeSantis: So let's zoom in on the map itself. Where were the biggest leaps in turnout?

Katy Smith: Well, virtually every precinct in Greenville County saw increased turnout between the two midterms of 2022 to 2026. But there were some places where growth was concentrated, and I have to say, it is so exciting to me because, as we always say to you, we don't care who you vote for, we just want you to vote. And to see this jump in voter participation is awesome to us. So the top five vote increases by precinct were, number one, the Carolina precinct, which sits below Anderson Road and White Horse Road and above I-185 and 85. It's the neighborhood that feeds into Carolina High School and includes the Staunton Bridge Community Center. It grew by 22 percentage points from 2022 to 2026.

I mean, that's astonishing. Then we had Greenville 29 precinct, which grew by 21 percentage points, and that's the area from Conestee Nature Preserve on Mauldin Road over to Laurens Road, where Christ Church Episcopal School sits. Greenville 14, which is in the Nicholtown community, grew by 19.9 percentage points. Mount Pleasant precinct, which sits between Old Grove Road and White Horse Road, grew by 19.8 percentage points. And Belle Meade, which is just between Augusta Road and I-85, like when you head south on I-85 at exit 46, along there, that's where Belle Meade is. It grew by 19.3 percentage points. These are some big jumps from the two midterm elections.

Nathaniel DeSantis: And that's a lot of measurable change, to see everything grow from 21, 19, 22 percentage points. But do we see any places that maybe were falling behind?

Katy Smith: Yeah, only a small fraction of precincts failed to match that broader growth in Greenville County, and these are all more rural areas of Greenville County, particularly in northern Greenville County. Slater-Marietta and Fork Shoals held steady. Locust Hill, Skyland, Ebenezer, all in Greenville County, ticked up just a percentage point or two. And I will note that these are areas that traditionally vote Republican straight ticket. And so you can see the tie between that turnout and Republican turnout dropping, as I shared earlier. Have to say, these precinct maps are so interesting to me. I love maps. We'll link in the show notes the link to look at precinct data from this election as well as the overall precinct map, so you can dig in if that's of interest to you.

Where registered voters grew and shrank

Nathaniel DeSantis: And so those percentages tell us a lot of, you know, how much a neighborhood was likely to go vote, but what about the actual size of those neighborhoods? We've talked a lot on the podcast, we've had a lot of people on to talk about growth in Greenville. So how did those population changes impact the registered voter numbers?

Katy Smith: Yeah, and thanks for making that distinction, because what I just shared was the percentages of voters who had registered relative to those who had voted. That doesn't connect to the number of people living there and how that number actually changed. Between the 2024 and 2026 elections, we've grown to about 350,000 registered voters in Greenville County. But we did see some individual precincts with dramatic shifts, and that growth is heavily concentrated in a handful of rapidly expanding precincts. And this will be no surprise to you. I mean, if you drive around Greenville County, you've seen it happen before your eyes.

So the top five fastest growing precincts by percentage from 2022 to 2026 are, first, Donaldson, which is near the Donaldson Center, which had the most explosive proportional growth, expanding its voter base by 60.8%. And then the Reedy Fork precinct, which is a large area. Fork Shoals Road runs right through it, and it's bounded by Highway 418 on the south. That grew by 44.7%. Next was the Ranch Creek precinct, which sits between Ashmore Bridge Road and I-185. And y'all, if you really wanna look, get on Google Maps and look up Ranch Road East. That's where that precinct is. It sort of sits in the middle, and you will see all this red clay of new neighborhoods being built, mainly a new Del Webb 55-plus community being built there, which is now there. That precinct grew 44.6%. Fountain Inn 2, which is, if you're headed out of the county on I-385 into Laurens, it's that last exit as you leave Greenville County, is where that precinct is. It grew 37.8%. And last of all is Greenville 29. This is the area which had great voter turnout this time, as I mentioned. It is across Mauldin Road from the entrance of Conestee and the baseball park. There are a lot of new apartments there, as lots of you know, and that precinct grew in registered voters by 34.1%.

So big growth just in terms of the number of voters.

Nathaniel DeSantis: On the flip side, though, were there places shrinking just as fast?

Katy Smith: Yeah, the sharpest proportional drop-offs in registered voters were concentrated in the urban center. So five precincts that saw a steep decline in the percentage of registered voters was in Greenville 25, which is the area between North Pleasantburg, I-385 and Pelham. It's like a little triangle area. Villa Road is there. There's a lot of apartments in that area, so it could be that people moved or were dropped from the voter rolls or new people moved in and didn't yet register. That saw about a 21% increase, like about a fifth of its voter pool dropped. Greenville 10 declined by 16.6%, and that is part of Nicholtown, Alta Vista and Haynie-Sirrine, which has undergone a lot of changes.

Greenville 21, which is a little area south of East Faris Road that includes an apartment complex along Cleveland Street and River Bend Condominiums, it declined by 14.8%. You can imagine a lot of change just happens in those two locations, even though the surrounding neighborhood's pretty stable. So yeah, of course, as people are moving in other areas, other areas are losing population, are changing, or they might be apartments which are a little more transient. So we did see some places where it declined.

Nathaniel DeSantis: Yeah. That urban shift versus the outer edge, I think that does a good job illustrating how Greenville is physically changing, right, and how that reshapes the electorate in the county. And yeah, I'm curious what other counties in South Carolina are like, and across the nation, but that's very illustrative.

Simple Civics' reach and what's next in 2027

Katy Smith: Yeah, and there will be more data to come out from the Election Commission about demographics of who voted, the race, the gender, the age, and that will be fascinating, but that's not yet available. But I presume that will tell a big story. We saw a lot on election night about how many more young voters turned out, so that'll be interesting to see too, and we can share that with you when it's available. But I'm so proud of all we were able to do, Nathaniel. You've looked at our data from the podcast and the candidate look-up tool. What have you seen?

Nathaniel DeSantis: Yes. So this election cycle, and this is excluding the primaries, which were also very good, we have reached 22,000, just about 21,989, give or take. So I'm gonna round up to 22,000. We've reached 22,000 people, which is an incredible number. Around 17,000 of those were just from the website, people either listening on there or going to the candidate look-up tool. And the candidate look-up tool itself hit around, I think it was like 7,000 people, something along those lines. And it's really incredible, because we saw something similar, I think maybe even less, for the presidential when we were doing all of that. And we didn't have a candidate look-up tool, but we did interview candidates. So it's quite incredible to see how this is very representative of the shifts that we're seeing across the county and the district, because that's 22,000 people in the span of a few days is kind of crazy to think about, in that reach that we're having, which is really fantastic. And now I can't wait to see what the next cycle brings us, right? But it's been great.

I'd be very interested for us to take a look, maybe do a recap one day and see how that tracks the specific districts, right? Since we interview candidates in certain districts, maybe we can see if there's a correlation with those increased turnouts in those districts as well. But 22,000 people, it's been an incredible election cycle for everyone. I think that really illustrates, again, how different this midterm was versus last one's and how engaged everyone was this year.

Katy Smith: Okay, that's amazing. I am so proud of us, and so proud of all of you who listen and use the tool to look up and make informed decisions about your vote. Again, we say we don't care who you vote for, we just care that you vote. And we also care that you do it having made a thoughtful decision. And I'm so happy that we were able to help you do it. And I would be remiss not to thank enormously all of the candidates who not only raised their hands to serve, but who came on to share with you what their platforms were and who they were and why they were running. Win or lose, they all did an enormous bunch of work to help craft a vision for how they wanted to serve you and to spend the time campaigning.

And man, I'm just so grateful to all of them, and just proud of all of our community and how it showed up.

Nathaniel DeSantis: And so just to wrap things up for everyone listening, Katy, for the past, well, it feels like a few months, we've been running a lot of things related to the election, candidate interviews. So what's next for Simple Civics now that we are done with the midterms?

Katy Smith: Well, we're gonna get back to our regular content that introduces you to topics about local and state government and the people who are in it and issues that our community faces. We have some fantastic interviews coming up that I cannot wait to share with you. So if you are a new listener who found us because of the election, oh my gosh, continue to tune in and use our website at simplecivicsgreenvillecounty.org to find past episodes that can teach you about things you're interested in. And then 2027 is still an election year. That is when we will have municipal elections for the six cities in Greenville County, and we will be reaching out to all of those candidates.

We'll have a change in 2027. We used to have partisan elections for the City of Greenville, so we used to have a Republican and Democratic primary in June for those. Because of a change in state legislation, those are now nonpartisan, so we will have a jam-packed fall to introduce you to candidates, city council candidates, mayoral candidates for our six cities. Stay tuned for that, but we thank each of you for being a Simple Civics Greenville County listener, and we thank all of the donors and sponsors who make these episodes possible.