One Republican candidate in South Carolina\u2019s open gubernatorial primary said Donald Trump would \u201cdecide my fate.\u201d Another pledged to send the state\u2019s National Guard troops wherever Trump wants. A third accompanied the then-presidential candidate to his 2024 criminal trial in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
In recent interviews with POLITICO, three contenders for the seat being vacated by Gov. Henry McMaster gushed over Trump\u2019s coveted endorsement and described some of their early efforts to secure it as the president plans to attend a fundraiser in the state<\/u><\/a> for the reelection of his longtime ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham.<\/p>\n The winner of next June\u2019s Republican primary is all but guaranteed to become deep-red South Carolina\u2019s next executive. The candidates include the state\u2019s lieutenant governor, attorney general and two members of its congressional delegation \u2014 all of whom are thirsting for the president\u2019s support.<\/p>\n A new Winthrop University poll<\/u><\/a> \u2014 the first major independent survey of the primary \u2014 found Rep. Nancy Mace and Lt. Gov. Pam Evette led the field in a statistical tie at 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Rep. Ralph Norman and Attorney General Alan Wilson followed with 8 percent each.<\/p>\n Though early favorites have started to emerge, the race remains wide open without Trump\u2019s nod.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019ll get to decide my fate. He is a kingmaker, and I hope in this case he will be a queenmaker,\u201d said Mace, the third-term member of Congress known for being outspoken on conservative cable news and social media.<\/p>\n South Carolina has a long history of fierce loyalty to Trump. McMaster became the first statewide elected official to endorse<\/u><\/a> the president\u2019s nascent 2016 campaign, and Graham is one of his closest advisers on Capitol Hill and friends on the putting green. Democrats haven\u2019t won the state in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford in 1976.<\/p>\n But so far, Trump has stayed out of the race, forcing the contenders to try to define themselves and their candidacies without input from someone who has dominated the party for a decade and remade it in his image. In that way, the race \u2014 taking place during a pivotal midterm cycle \u2014 mirrors the challenge awaiting the Republican Party, which must begin to grapple with a future without Trump, who is in his final term.<\/p>\n For now, the candidates aren\u2019t willing to explore that future.<\/p>\n \u201cDonald Trump is the gold standard. He casts a very long shadow over state politics here in South Carolina, especially in the Republican primary,\u201d said Wilson. \u201cAnyone who says they don\u2019t want the president\u2019s endorsement is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n From his perch in Columbia, Wilson has filed nearly 20 briefs across the federal judiciary in support of Trump administration initiatives like federalizing the National Guard or enforcing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, according to a POLITICO analysis. His campaign website features<\/u><\/a> a \u201cTrump Tough\u201d section, which includes a slideshow of selfies and step-and-repeat pictures with the president.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s only attention to the race so far was a captionless post <\/u><\/a>on Truth Social in mid-August showing the results of a survey that put Mace atop of the crowded field \u2014 a poll that the congresswoman shared with the president, according to campaign spokesperson Piper Gifford.<\/p>\n \u201cI absolutely communicate with the White House on this race and provide data and information to them and to those who will be ultimately making the decision,\u201d Mace said in the recent interview.<\/p>\n Wilson has also been in touch with \u201chigh level members\u201d of the White House about his candidacy, but has yet to broach the race directly with Trump. \u201cThey are aware of my campaign. They are aware of what I have done as attorney general. They are aware that I have defended the president’s agenda, that I have defended the president,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Evette entered the race in mid-July. Though she served two terms alongside McMaster, her foray into gubernatorial contention will be her first time running for elected office on her own ticket. Asked about any behind-the-scenes conversations with the White House seeking support, the state\u2019s second-in-command demurred, while reiterating her loyalty to Trump at his political nadir.<\/p>\n \u201cIn January of \u201823, President Trump came to South Carolina, and he was looking for friends,\u201d Evette said, recalling Trump\u2019s brief time in the political wilderness following his 2020 loss and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. \u201cOut of all the people that are in this race, I was the only one that showed up for him, stood shoulder to shoulder with him when there were no polls to say that he was going to win.\u201d<\/p>\n She recalled national consultants warning her, \u201c\u2018You have a bright future, you’re killing yourself. Like, why are you doing this? He’s going to get indicted.\u2019 And I was like, well, loyalty matters.\u201d<\/p>\n Loyalty to Trump might determine his endorsement, and the candidates are willing to leverage that litmus test against one another.<\/p>\n Unlike Evette, Mace publicly rebuked the president <\/u><\/a>following the attack on the Capitol but has since returned to his side as a faithful ally on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n Norman might have the hardest case to make in seeking Trump\u2019s endorsement.<\/p>\n As a member of Congress\u2019 hard-right Freedom Caucus, Norman\u2019s deficit-hawk style has at times positioned him against some White House-backed legislation that the group criticised for expanding the national debt. Perhaps worse for his fate: endorsing South Carolina\u2019s Nikki Haley during the 2024 Republican presidential primary.<\/p>\n \u201cRalph Norman has the best record of voting with Trump of any candidate and is proud to work with him in Congress. He’d welcome the President’s endorsement but knows that the President has other friends in this race and he respects that,\u201d Norman spokesperson Evan Newman said in a statement.<\/p>\n Speaking with reporters after a party fundraising event in Columbia earlier this summer, Graham said he told the president to \u201cwait and see\u201d<\/u><\/a> before issuing an endorsement in the governor\u2019s race. South Carolina is at least somewhat on the president\u2019s mind, though. The president will take his first in-person dip into the 2026 midterms when he attends a fundraiser that in part is billed to Graham\u2019s own reelection campaign<\/u><\/a>, POLITICO first reported.<\/p>\n The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the president\u2019s conversations around a possible endorsement or whether he is communicating with any of the candidates. The lack of endorsement in South Carolina isn\u2019t indicative of a larger trend, though. The president has already thrown his support behind Rep. Byron Donalds to succeed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis next year, and his former rival-turned-ally Vivek Ramaswamy got the coveted endorsement not long after his campaign launch in February.<\/p>\n Lacking a race-changing boost from the president, the candidates have touted their own fundraising as evidence of grassroots support and the campaign strength. By those metrics, no runaway favorite has yet to emerge.<\/p>\n The four contenders each reported raising over a million dollars since starting their campaigns, according to financial reports filed with the South Carolina Elections Commission. Evette and Norman led the pack with $1.4 and $1.3 million respectively, though both also gave their own campaigns six-figure sums.<\/p>\n Wilson, who launched his campaign first, has just under $1.3 million. According to a memo released by his campaign, about one-fifth of that haul includes a six-figure transfer from his state attorney general campaign account, with \u201cstill more transfers on the way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey believed in him to be Attorney General and now want him to be Governor,\u201d campaign finance chair Barry Wynn wrote.<\/p>\n Mace\u2019s fundraising shows her slightly trailing her competitors, with $1.06 million raised, but other indicators bode well for her campaign. In addition to the new Winthrop poll showing her with a slight lead, she pulled in over 18,500 individual donations, exponentially more than her rivals.<\/p>\n In addition to the candidates\u2019 agreement on the eminence of a presidential endorsement, the emerging issues separating them are decidedly local.<\/p>\n They\u2019re aligned on the perennial sticking points that are likely to define the race: lowering taxes, and specifically eliminating the state\u2019s income tax, and fixing the state\u2019s aging infrastructure as it buckles under population growth.<\/p>\n Judicial reform has also emerged as a salient issue, with South Carolina and Virginia being the only states in the country where judges are selected by a commission and approved solely by a legislative vote. Neither the governor nor voters have a say in who serves on the local bench.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of these folks have cases before these judges and then many of these attorneys fund the attorney generals and the solicitors when they’re running for office. Everybody gets paid, and nobody goes to jail,\u201d Mace said.<\/p>\n The candidates don\u2019t seem to agree on how to implement this one: as the state\u2019s top prosecutor, Wilson helped push some recent changes through the state legislature that allowed the governor to appoint one-third of the seats on a selection committee that took effect this year.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that the governor should have all of the appointments on the [Judicial Merit Selection Committee],\u201d Wilson said, while expressing openness to pushing a constitutional amendment that would embrace the federal advise-and-consent model.<\/p>\n Evette, banking on the relationship she forged with the state legislature alongside McMaster, hopes to move directly to amending the state constitution to have the state mirror federal judicial appointments.<\/p>\n Norman is the only candidate to call for direct election of judges in the state.<\/p>\n McMaster, who has focused on business development in the relatively small state, is preparing to leave his two terms in Columbia with a 46-percent approval rating, matching Trump at the top of the public figures included in the Winthrop University survey.<\/p>\n McMaster has so far demurred on whether he\u2019ll endorse any of his potential successors.<\/p>\n Speaking to reporters recently, he said, \u201cElections will come and go, and endorsements will be made whenever they\u2019re made.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One Republican candidate in South Carolina\u2019s open gubernatorial primary said Donald Trump would \u201cdecide my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n