State Attorney General Alan Wilson has won the Republican nomination for governor of South Carolina, NBC News projected Tuesday, after a closely watched runoff that featured President Donald Trump’s unusual double endorsement of two candidates.
Wilson is now heavily favored heading into the general election in South Carolina’s first open governor’s race since 2010. Republican Gov. Henry McMaster was term-limited and could not seek re-election. Democratic candidate Jermaine Johnson won his primary this month.
In the initial June 9 Republican primary, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette finished first with 29% of the votes, while Wilson placed second with 26%, with both advancing to the runoff.
Trump had expressed support for Evette less than two weeks ahead of the initial primary. However, he posted on Truth Social a few days before Tuesday’s runoff that he would now endorse both Wilson and Evette.
“These were the two that I was hoping would get into a Runoff, and they did. I can’t hurt one of them by only endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson! It’s a Wealth of Riches — With either one, you can’t go wrong,” he wrote.
Before Trump’s double endorsement, Reps. Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace endorsed Wilson after they finished third and fifth, respectively, in the first primary. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., also backed Wilson.
South Carolina has elected Republican governors in every election since 2002, when its last Democratic governor, Jim Hodges, was leaving office.
Before this race, Trump’s preferred candidates had faced challenges in several recent governor’s races.
In Iowa’s and Georgia’s campaigns for governor this month, the Trump-backed candidates lost in their primaries.
Rep. Randy Feenstra, whom Trump endorsed, lost his Republican primary in Iowa to businessman Zach Lahn. After the race, Trump suggested he had not been fully familiar with the contest and remarked that “the other person was much more Trump” than Feenstra.
Then, in Georgia, political newcomer Rick Jackson, a billionaire businessman, defeated Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the race for governor.
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