Path to Victory in Tuesday SC1 Runoff Through Beaufort Co.

NOTE: After a reader brought a certain statistic to our attention, we checked it again and have corrected it.

Curtis Bostic's surprise second-place finish in the SC1 GOP primary was fueled by a balanced showing across the four major counties in the district: Berkeley, Beaufort, Charleston and Dorchester.

Only Bostic and race frontrunner Mark Sanford, the former congressman and governor, garnered at least 8 percent of the vote in all four counties. The maps above show a precinct-by-precinct breakdown of how both Sanford and Bostic fared in SC1 in the GOP primary.

But the key area for both men to capture the Republican nomination and face Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch in the May election to replace new U.S. Sen. Tim Scott is in Beaufort County.

On Thursday night, the two Republican candidates square off in a GOP runoff debate from Charleston. Follow the live coverage here on Patch.

The district's southernmost county has approximately 22 percent of all the registered Republican voters in South Carolina's first congressional district. But more importantly, it has the most available voters.

Combined, Sanford and Bostic received 37 percent of the Beaufort County vote. In each of the other three big counties, they received more than 50, which means that almost two-thirds of the Republican voters in Beaufort County still need to be decide between the men.

The candidate who finished first in Beaufort County in the primary was state Rep. Andy Patrick, who represents a portion of the county.

Patrick told Patch that turning out voters will unquestionably be critical on Tuesday.

Bostic, Patrick, said, “did well in some northern precincts in the county, but I think he might be swimming upstream.”

Patrick said two weeks — the time between the primary and the runoff — is not much to reach undecided voters.

Patrick wondered if voters were motivated to come out just to cast a vote against Sanford and that voters who are motivated to vote often feel that way because they are for rather than against a specific candidate.

In the end, Patrick said, it’s almost impossible to predict what will happen on Election Day, other than whomever wins Beaufort County will almost certainly win the entire district.

"If I knew the secret to winning Beaufort County, I’d be in the runoff,” he said with a laugh.

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