Do we like them?

Do we like Henry McMaster?

Our score: 2 out of 10. He signed bans on gender-affirming care for minors and on trans athletes, and what we could verify of the good stuff is thin.

Henry McMaster is a Republican and the governor of South Carolina, and he's on his way out. He gave his final State of the State on 28 January 2026, pitching a budget with infrastructure, tax cuts, teacher raises and expanded 4K. That's the polite, policy-wonk side of the man.

It wasn't a one-off. In 2022 he signed a bill barring trans student athletes from teams that match their gender identity, which the ACLU and LGBTQ+ groups slammed. His supporters say it's about child safety and fairness in sport. Where you land depends on whether you see it as protection or as targeting kids who are already vulnerable, but on our test it's harm done by his own signature.

On abortion, he signed the 2021 fetal heartbeat law, and when a federal court blocked it he appealed the injunction. His supporters call that standing by his principles, while opponents say it's about taking away choices from women. Either way, it's the same pattern of using the governor's pen against people's rights over their own bodies.

In August 2025 he authorised sending about 200 South Carolina National Guard members to Washington, D.C. to back Trump's crime crackdown, after saying days earlier that Trump hadn't asked. The ACLU of South Carolina condemned it. His side sees helping a federal request; critics see a governor following Trump's lead on a contested use of troops.

The courts have gone both ways for him. The state Supreme Court threw out a challenge to his move to end federal pandemic unemployment benefits early in 2021, but in 2020 it ruled his plan to use federal relief money for private school tuition grants was unconstitutional. That's the normal scoreboard of a long-serving governor, not a scandal.

The good stuff is where we're honest about gaps: the budget wins on teacher pay and early education are what he's pitching, and we couldn't verify charity work or standing up for anyone at personal cost. That's honestly the whole list from what we could open, and several key pages wouldn't load for us. It's a thin ledger against a pretty clear run of laws aimed at trans people.