Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Attorney General Alan Wilson will advance to a runoff in a competitive Republican primary for governor of South Carolina. 

Evette, President Donald Trump’s pick in the race, ran in a crowded primary that also included businessman Rom Reddy and Reps. Ralph Norman and Nancy Mace. Because no one candidate earned a majority of the vote, Evette and Wilson will face off in a June 23 runoff. The candidates are vying to succeed term-limited Gov. Henry McMaster. 

Trump endorsed Evette less than two weeks before the primary, calling her “an America First Patriot who has been with me from the very beginning.”

In doing so, he snubbed Mace, his longtime supporter and sometimes adversary. Mace was one of three Republican women who, in a rare rebuke of the Trump administration, sided with Democrats last year to force the Department of Justice to release its millions of files connected to Jeffrey Epstein, the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. 

“That’s the sole reason I didn’t get the endorsement, because I voted to release the Epstein files, and I’m OK with that,” Mace recently told Politico. “I’ve worked very hard to expose pedophiles, and child rapists, and sex trafficking in my state, and will continue to do it regardless of the outcome of the election.”

Mace, who ultimately placed fifth in the primary, conceded defeat and announced she would endorse Wilson, whom she had vocally criticized throughout her campaign. Both said on election night that they had “buried the hatchet.” 

Just one of the four House Republicans who signed on to the push to force a vote on releasing the files, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, is set to stay in Congress after the 2026 cycle. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia resigned from Congress earlier this year, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost renomination to a Trump-backed primary challenger last month, and Mace gave up her seat in Congress to run for governor. 

In addition to the primary challenge against Massie, two Republican lawmakers, Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas, lost their primary races after falling out of favor with Trump, who endorsed their primary opponents. He and his allies also spent millions to unseat Indiana state senators who resisted a White House-led push to redraw congressional lines ahead of the 2026 midterms. But Trump’s endorsement hasn’t always guaranteed a primary win — in Iowa, his pick for governor, Rep. Randy Feenstra, lost the Republican primary to businessman Zach Lahn. 

Evette, a former businesswoman who would be the state’s second woman governor after former Gov. Nikki Haley, ran on her support for Trump and emphasized issues including eliminating the state income tax, election security and judicial reform. 

Evette was also a supporter of a push in South Carolina to draw out Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn’s seat after the Supreme Court paved the way for the elimination of majority-Black congressional districts, but state lawmakers declined to pass a new map before the primary elections. 

The Republican nominee will face Rep. Jermaine Johnson, the Democrats’ nominee, and is expected to easily win the general election for governor in the deep-red state, which backed Trump by nearly 18 points in the 2024 presidential election.