COLUMBIA (AP) -- South Carolina's election results appear to suggest landmark racial progress in a state that still flies the Confederate flag near its Statehouse.
This week, voters nominated an Indian-American woman for governor and a black state lawmaker for Congress. But some ask whether the victories by state representatives Nikki Haley and Tim Scott are a sign of real change or just an aberration of conservative politics.
Political scientist Merle Black of Emory University in Atlanta says the results mark a change in a state where voting has run along racial fault lines.
But Haley and Scott stressed their message, not their ethnicity or gender.
Voters said they supported the tea party-endorsed candidates as conservatives willing to shake things up.
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