To compensate for this loss in population, Spence's district was enlarged geographically to take in population to the south and west, as far south as the resort city of Hilton Head Island and as far west as the fringes of the Augusta suburbs. The loss of most of the district's African-American voters, who by then comprised much of the Democratic base in the district where whites supported Republicans, was a likely factor in the Democrats not running a candidate against Spence for most of the 1990s.