Supporters line up outside Doc's Barbeque in Columbia, South Carolina, on Monday, June 22, 2026, to get their photo taken with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Attorney General Alan Wilson. The Texas senator is campaigning with Wilson ahead of the June 23 GOP gubernatorial primary runoff. (Photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)
PELZER – The first year of South Carolina’s GOP race for governor was dominated by questions about which candidate President Donald Trump would endorse. Its final days were dominated by the president’s decision to endorse everyone.
On the Friday before the runoff, Trump reversed his May 29 “complete and total” endorsement of Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and told voters they “can’t go wrong” picking Evette or her opponent, state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
The unusual co-endorsement provided a final twist in the first wide-open race for the GOP nomination for governor since 2010.
It provided a boost for Wilson’s campaign and a blow for Evette, who had exuded confidence since her endorsement and a first-place finish in the June 9 first round of voting.
The race has served as another test of the power of Trump’s endorsement as the second half of his final term comes into view.
After previously mentioning her ties to Trump repeatedly in marketing and at campaign events, Evette’s pitch to voters changed in the final days and hours of the gubernatorial campaign.
At a rally on the eve of the runoff, the moniker “Trump-endorsed” was stamped on her campaign materials, and pamphlets touted the president’s original endorsement. But Evette did not mention his endorsements. She evoked the president’s name in passing just twice in her 15-minute remarks at a campaign stop in rural Anderson County.
Evette told about 40 supporters gathered at an event space northwest of Pelzer that runoffs come down to turnout.
“They don’t come down to polling. They don’t come down to endorsements,” Evette said, emphasizing endorsements from local mayors and state representatives.
The attorney general hasn’t leaned too hard into the co-endorsement either, though Wilson, who also sought Trump’s endorsement for much of the campaign, makes certain voters know about it.
“I’m so incredibly grateful to President Trump for placing his faith in me this past Friday and recognizing the 10 years of fighting for his agenda I’ve done,” he told an audience that packed Doc’s Barbeque on Monday night. Then he ran through a list of local endorsees.
Trump’s endorsements won’t swing the race, Republican Lexington County Councilman Jason Guerry said at Wilson’s Columbia event.
“I think the people of South Carolina already made their mind up,” he said.
Wilson spent the eve of the runoff campaigning with another endorser from Washington: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Despite his staunch support for Trump, Cruz has had a complicated relationship with the president.
Trump dubbed Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” when the pair clashed during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. Cruz called Trump a “pathological liar” before he dropped out of the race in May 2016, clearing the way for Trump to be the GOP nominee.
Speaking to reporters after the event at Doc’s Barbeque, Cruz noted his disagreements with Trump but acknowledged the potency of Trump’s blessing.
“I think there is no doubt that President Trump’s endorsement of Alan Wilson is going to be hugely consequential, that it really added momentum to the campaign,” Cruz told reporters.
Cruz’s appearance in the Palmetto State, which holds the first-in-the-South presidential contest, hints at his own potential plans in a post-Trump GOP.
Evette tried to use Wilson’s post-primary embrace of Cruz as evidence that she holds the deeper loyalty to the president.
Last week, the lieutenant governor called on Wilson to condemn Cruz’s opposition to Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran.
“If he won’t do that, South Carolina will see him for the empty-suited, career politician and Never Trumper that he truly is,” Evette said in a news release and wrote on social media two days before Trump endorsed Wilson too.
Following the dual endorsement, Evette has stressed that Trump endorsed her first.
“I was very proud that when there was a very crowded field, the president picked me,” she told reporters after the event near Pelzer.
Evette said the president did not communicate with her before making the additional endorsement. After it was posted on social media, Trump sent Evette a text message that “just basically said: ‘Good luck. Fight. Win,’” Evette said.
The co-endorsement came after a rough stretch for the Evette campaign.
Trump’s suggestion that McMaster’s son, Henry McMaster Jr., would be Evette’s running mate prompted accusations of a quid pro quo, which the governor denied. A week later, the governor’s son announced he would not be on Evette’s ticket.
After last week’s debate, Evette released a list of nine potential picks for lieutenant governor, some of whom said they didn’t even know they were under consideration.
And three of their former opponents backed Wilson over Evette: U.S. Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, respectively the fifth- and third-place finishers in the June 9 primary, as well as state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, who officially withdrew days before the primary but still appeared on ballots.
“I’ve been fighting for and defending the president’s agenda for the better part of a decade,” Wilson told reporters Monday. “I think the president also loves people who are fighters, and I think he saw the grit and fight that he saw in our campaign over the last several weeks, and I think that was reflected in his dual endorsement.”
Evette’s backers granted that Trump’s reversal may have some effect.
“President Trump still carries a lot of weight in the Southeast. A dual endorsement may water it down,” state Rep. Blake Sanders, a West Pelzer Republican, said at Evette’s event.
But he contended that even without an exclusive endorsement, Evette will still win on the issues and her personal engagement with voters.
Deborah Owen, a retiree from Williamston who made a final decision to vote for Evette after attending Monday’s rally near Pelzer, said she hoped her fellow Republicans aren’t voting based on an endorsement.
“President Trump’s trying to do a really good job, but I don’t know his values,” she said. “I hope people are doing what I’m doing and seeking knowledge and not just pushing buttons so they can get a sticker.”
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Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
