South Carolina's 5th congressional district is a congressional district in northern South Carolina bordering North Carolina. The district includes all of Cherokee, Chester, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lancaster, Lee, Union and York counties and parts of Newberry, Spartanburg and Sumter counties. The bulk of its population lives on the South Carolina side of the Charlotte metropolitan area, including the rapidly growing cities of Rock Hill, Fort Mill, and Lake Wylie. Outside the Charlotte suburbs, the district is mostly rural and agricultural. The district borders were contracted from some of the easternmost counties in the 2012 redistricting.
The district's character is very similar to other mostly rural districts in the South. Democrats still hold most offices outside Republican-dominated York County. However, few of the area's Democrats can be described as liberal by national standards; most are fairly conservative on social issues, but less so on economics. The largest blocs of Republican voters are in the fast-growing Charlotte suburbs, as well as Cherokee County, which shares the Republican tilt of most of the rest of the Upstate. York County is by far the largest county in the district, with almost one-third of its population, and its increasingly Republican bent has pushed the district as a whole into the Republican column in recent years.
In November 2010, the Republican Mick Mulvaney defeated longtime Congressman John Spratt and became the first Republican since Robert Smalls and the end of Reconstruction to represent the district. Following Mulvaney's confirmation as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, a special election was held in 2017, in which Republican Ralph Norman defeated Democrat Archie Parnell.
From 2003 to 2013 the district included all of Cherokee, Chester, Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lancaster, Marlboro, Newberry and York counties and parts of Florence, Lee and Sumter counties.
For the 118th and successive Congresses (based on redistricting following the 2020 census), the district contains all or portions of the following counties and communities:
Cherokee County (6)
Chester County (7)
Fairfield County (5)
Kershaw County (7)
Lancaster County (10)
Lee County (8)
Sumter County (13)
Union County (6)
York County (16)
In the first season of House of Cards, protagonist Frank Underwood represents the district in the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat between 1991 and 2013.