COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial primary has narrowed to a two-person contest after neither Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette nor Attorney General Alan Wilson captured a majority of the vote in the five-candidate field on Tuesday, according to a race call by The Associated Press. The runoff election is set for June 23.
Evette, who was plucked from relative obscurity by Gov. Henry McMaster in 2017 to be his running mate and later won election as lieutenant governor, carries the endorsement of President Trump. In a post on Truth Social on May 29, Trump wrote: “Pam has my Complete and Total Endorsement — SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump’s post also mentioned the possibility that McMaster’s son, Henry D. McMaster Jr., could serve as Evette’s running mate — a suggestion that drew criticism from her rivals, who called it a backroom deal. Evette and McMaster Jr. have denied that she has tapped him so far.
MSI previously reported that McMaster endorsed Evette in February to succeed him as governor, a move that helped establish her as a frontrunner in the primary field even before Trump’s backing.
Wilson, first elected attorney general in 2010 and subsequently reelected three times, is the son of 2nd District Congressman Joe Wilson. He also serves as a colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps for the South Carolina Army National Guard. His office’s work on the 2023 murder trial of disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh brought him national attention, though the state Supreme Court overturned Murdaugh’s double murder conviction in May due to jury tampering by Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill. The case is set for retrial in the coming months.
The two candidates hold broadly similar policy positions. Neither Evette nor Wilson says they want to restrict abortion access further than the state’s current six-week ban, a position polling indicates has public support. Both are seeking to make government more efficient through audits and to eliminate the state’s 5.21% personal income tax, which has been gradually reduced in recent years.
The runoff was widely expected in the crowded primary, which also included 1st District Congresswoman Nancy Mace, 5th District Congressman Ralph Norman and a Lowcountry businessman — candidates who represent positions further to the right than the two statewide elected officials.
Three Democrats are vying for their party’s nomination: Columbia state Rep. Jermaine Johnson, Charleston lawyer Mullins McLeod and Greenville businessman Billy Webster. South Carolina operates open primaries, allowing voters to choose which party’s ballot to cast on election day.
A record number of South Carolinians voted early in the primary period over the last two weeks, according to the AP report. The early voting period began just as the Republican-controlled state Senate rejected a new congressional map that Trump and other Republicans had sought to create a more GOP-friendly district. The map would have targeted the 6th District, the only Democratic-held seat in the state’s congressional delegation, currently held by Rep. Jim Clyburn. Concerns over voter disenfranchisement and the rushed redistricting process contributed to the map’s failure.