Trump-backed Pamela Evette and Alan Wilson head to runoff in South Carolina GOP governor race

Donald Trump-backed Pamela Evette, South Carolina’s lieutenant governor and Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general, have advanced to a runoff in a competitive race to represent the Republican party in South Carolina’s gubernatorial election.

The winner of the Republican primary is favored to win the closely watched general election, given South Carolina’s conservative tilt, although Democrats are hoping to ride a wave of progressive enthusiasm to make political gains across the ticket.

That result also signaled a decisive defeat for Nancy Mace, the controversial Republican congresswoman.

The Republican gubernatorial nominee in South Carolina will face Jermaine Johnson, the Democratic state representative and a former professional basketball player representing a Columbia-area district, who won broad endorsement from party officials before winning the Democratic primary on Tuesday night.

South Carolina changed its election process in 2012 so that the governor and lieutenant governor run on the same ticket in a general election; outgoing governor, Henry McMaster, chose Evette as his running mate in 2018.

As an entrepreneur, Evette grew Quality Business Solutions, an HR and accounting software company, into a billion-dollar revenue business before entering politics. She led the contest in fundraising, with a war chest of about $3.5m, including $1m of her own money.

Meanwhile, Wilson, who has served as South Carolina’s attorney general since 2011, is a reserve colonel in the national guard’s judge advocate general corps and the adoptive son of long-serving Republican US representative, Joe Wilson.

Ralph Norman, a US representative, is – per GovTrack, a government transparency site – one of the most conservative members of the US House of Representatives, and also one of its wealthiest, after building a fortune as a real estate, trailed Evette and Wilson.

Norman, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, called in January 2021 on the White House to declare martial law to prevent Joe Biden from taking office as president. Though he has made infrastructure improvements his signature campaign focus, Norman pledged to sign state legislation into law that would eliminate remaining abortion exceptions for rape, incest and fatal fetal anomalies.

Rom Reddy, child of immigrants and former Exxon Mobil executive, also sought the nomination and entered the governor’s race with $5m of his own money, citing the frustrations of a years-long dispute with environmental regulators over a seawall he had built to protect his Sea Island mansion.

Mace has been a polarizing figure nationally and in state politics. Her movement between support and opposition of Trump and her increasingly strident opposition to transgender rights has drawn disproportionate media attention. So have incidents like a confrontation with staff at the Charleston airport last year, which drew condemnation from both US senators Lindsey Graham and David Scott.