Who will get Trump’s endorsement in competitive SC governor’s race? | Opinion
Barring a surprise, a crowded, competitive Republican field in South Carolina’s open governor’s race is now set, and it could be one of the most fascinating statewide races in the country.
Candidates include the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, two congressional leaders and the state senator whose threat to withhold state funds from Columbia forced it to overturn a ban on conversion therapy. Expect red-meat political issues to play prominently in the race as each candidate tries to position themselves to the right of the others in conservative South Carolina.
You’ll be hearing a lot from state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, R-Spartanburg; Attorney General Alan Wilson; Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette; Rep. Ralph Norman, who represents Rock Hill and parts of South Carolina south of Charlotte, N.C.; and Rep. Nancy Mace, who represents the Lowcountry.
Kimbrell was technically first to jump into the race June 23, sending an email to the media the morning of a day that Wilson had planned his own announcement. Evette followed July 14. Norman declared himself a candidate July 27. Mace said she was officially in on Monday.
One of the most interesting aspects of the race to replace popular, termed-out Gov. Henry McMaster in one of the nation’s reddest states is this: It may swing on the endorsement of popular, termed-out President Donald Trump, but the new governor’s nearly guaranteed eight years in office (assuming no reelection-threatening misstep) will include six post-Trump years.
Democrats don’t stand a chance, so the next governor will want — and need — to stay close enough to Trump in 2026 to win in a midterm election that has historically been unkind to the party of the president in power but also stand on their own two feet when the Trump era ends.
It remains to be seen whether government cost-saving measures will still be called DOGE by then, or if the Department of Government Efficiency, and its state equivalents, will have been rebranded in the same way the Hoover Commission in the 1940s and 1950s led to the Grace Commission in the 1980s, which led to the National Performance Review in the 1990s.
Hopefully, some form of fiscal conservatism will play a part in national and state politics going forward.
But the far-reaching reverberations of Trump’s second term, both the appetite for his overhaul of government and the appreciation of the country’s rightward tilt under him, will still be ringing in South Carolina, where state lawmakers have banned abortions after six weeks, pushed for zero income tax and helped lead a national charge against diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The state’s voting majority is conservative and proud of it. Trump won the state three times.
So who will get his endorsement? That remains to be seen, and anyone who thinks they know now doesn’t know at all, even if it’s in the works, because Trump is such a devious dealmaker.
Kimbrell doesn’t have a shot given the others’ orbits, and Norman was the only member of Congress to endorse and campaign with former Gov. Nikki Haley over Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, and Haley has returned the favor, endorsing Norman to be governor.
South Carolina-based Associated Press reporter Meg Kinnard has reported that Wilson, who calls himself a “battle-tested conservative,” blasted the impeachment proceedings against Trump in 2020 as “fundamentally flawed as a matter of constitutional law,” and flew to New York last year to support Trump as he stood trial in a closely-watched hush money case.
In her announcement, Evette said of Trump, “South Carolina needs a governor who has earned his trust. A governor who doesn’t need to build a relationship. A governor who can pick up the phone and get things done for South Carolina because that relationship already exists.”
Norman invoked Trump’s military strike on Iran in his announcement, saying, “The courage that he had to do what he did is going to put him on the annals of the greatest presidents we have ever had, and I believe that South Carolina needs that same kind of leadership right now.”
Mace called herself “Trump in high heels” and said she’d be a “super MAGA governor.” Of the president, she said, “No one will work harder to get his attention and his endorsement. No one else in this race can say they’ve been there for the president like I have, as much as I have and worked as hard as I have to get the president his agenda delivered to him in the White House.”
Some polling has surfaced in the race, but it’s early enough that there’s no front-runner. The numbers that will matter most have less to do with current popularity and name ID than with the fundraising that will allow messaging (positive and negative) and narratives to be relayed across the state. In other words, Trump’s endorsement could go a long way to determining the winner.
For months, Wilson’s office has been joining amicus briefs in federal court cases and notifying the media about all the ways he’s aligned himself with Trump’s priorities by supporting his policies and standing in the way of Democrats trying to deny them. Perhaps Trump has noticed.
Evette, a successful businesswoman, was elected on McMaster’s ticket, in 2018 and 2022, after then-Lt. Gov. McMaster became the first official elected statewide in the country to endorse Trump in early 2016, well ahead of Trump’s ascension. Perhaps those connections work in her favor.
Mace famously criticized Trump after the storming of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, overcame the loss of his endorsement in 2022 and won his support back in 2024. Now, she’s become one of his most ardent advocates in national politics. Perhaps Trump is appreciative.
Trump is unlikely to dole out his endorsement soon since the primary is still 10 months away. He’ll want to see what each candidate does and says while focusing on other issues and races. Or maybe the campaign consultants and strategists running the local campaigns have ties to Trump World and that will determine which candidate can ultimately tout Trump’s support.
As with any campaign, voters should hope to see candidates with clear handles on complex issues, but brace for one-liners and two-bit tweets in the months before the June 9, 2026, GOP primary election results will all but determine who is governor of South Carolina through 2034.
Even the voters who want the winner to be the most MAGA candidate beside Trump himself shouldn’t settle for disses over discourse. To put a new twist on an old line from another president, ask not what your governor can do for your country.
Ask what your governor can do for you — and the state of South Carolina.
That’s where this election should be decided. What issues most interest you in the governor’s race, and why? Let me know. Email me at mhall@thestate.com, and I’ll do my part to get beyond the rhetoric to real issues that affect all of us.
Matthew T. Hall is McClatchy’s South Carolina opinion editor.
This story was originally published August 5, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Who will get Trump’s endorsement in competitive SC governor’s race? | Opinion."