South Carolina Republicans handed Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson a victory over Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette in the Tuesday’s high-stakes gubernatorial runoff.
NBC News called the election shortly after polls closed. With 8% of the vote counted, Wilson led Evette 65.5% to 34.5%.
Wilson’s win caps months of intense campaigning in a race that exposed divisions within South Carolina’s GOP establishment and became a proxy battle over the party’s future direction.
President Donald Trump initially threw his support behind South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, giving her his “Complete and Total Endorsement” in a Truth Social post on May 29 ahead of the state’s crowded Republican gubernatorial primary.
Trump praised Evette as a loyal ally and early supporter of his political movement, and the endorsement was widely viewed as a major boost to her campaign. Evette went on to finish first in the June 9 primary, winning 28.9% of the vote to Wilson’s 26.1% and soundly defeating headline-grabbing Rep. Nancy Mace, who finished fifth. (RELATED: Trump Endorses Against GOP Congresswoman Who Defied Him On Epstein Files)
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But just weeks later, Trump shifted course. On Friday, ahead of the June 23 runoff, he announced that he would endorse both Evette and Wilson, calling the two Republicans “MAGA and America First all the way.”
In the Truth Social post, Trump said he could not bring himself to hurt one candidate by endorsing the other, writing that South Carolina Republicans could not go wrong with either choice.
The unusual move effectively muddied what had previously been a clear endorsement.
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