Much of Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette’s campaign for the GOP nomination for governor has centered around her loyalty to President Donald Trump, often citing she’s the only candidate in the race to stand with the president in January 2023 when he made his first visit to the state of the 2024 election cycle.

Much of the aim has been to earn the endorsement from the president, which has been seen as key to winning the Republican nomination in the race for governor of South Carolina and to appeal to the MAGA base of the GOP.

Evette’s campaign took the loyalty argument to a new level by releasing a video generated with artificial intelligence depicting Attorney General Alan Wilson as ignoring Trump’s phone calls.

If and when Trump will endorse in the race remains to be seen. No candidate has broken out from the rest of the pack and a sizable chunk of the electorate remains undecided.

An October 2025 poll from Winthrop University found 76% of likely Republican voters said Trump’s endorsement was very important or somewhat important to them.

Both Evette and Wilson served as surrogates for Trump during the 2024 campaign, which included both traveling to New Hampshire ahead of that state’s presidential primary.

On Thursday, shortly before Wilson formally filed to run, the Evette campaign posted the 30-second ad on its social media platform. The ad depicts the attorney general sending a phone call from Trump in 2016 straight to voicemail, supporting John Kasich and later backing Nikki Haley in 2024.

“Four years later, Wilson affirmed Biden’s election,” the ad narrator says. “In 2024 Wilson ignored President Trump again. ‘President Trump on line one, Mr. Wilson. Tell him I’m busy.’ ”

The ad also shows a 2020 article from The State, with the headline “SC’s AG Alan Wilson: Biden is legitimate.” The complete headline of the Jan. 11, 2021, story was: “SC’s AG Alan Wilson: Biden is legitimate, Pence had no power to overturn election.”

Trump called on Pence to not count electoral votes from battleground states amid a push to allow fake electors ballots to be counted. Instead, Pence counted the legitimate electoral votes and certified Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Still, after the 2020 election Wilson was one 16 Republican attorneys general to challenge Biden’s victory in court.

Wilson dismissed Evette’s ad Thursday.

“I’m the only person running for governor who has actually defended the president and his agenda in a court of law,” Wilson said. “People out there that have to use fake AI-generated cartoons to try to lie about me shows it’s a sign of desperation.”

Evette’s campaign in late January pointed to how Wilson didn’t endorse Trump in the 2024 cycle until September 2023 despite several other opportunities to do so. Wilson also ran ads on Facebook in 2023 asking followers who they supported in the presidential race, Evette’s campaign said.

Wilson’s campaign said he did not attend the January 2023 rally at the state house because he had been preparing for the Alex Murdaugh trial. Wilson was not at a July 2023 Pickens rally because he was traveling back from out of state military duty as part of his service in the Army National Guard. Wilson also attended the Silver Elephant Gala in August 2023 where Trump spoke.

Wilson formally endorsed Trump in September 2023 ahead of a Summerville rally.

Wilson has repeatedly pointed to how he signed onto cases to question the integrity of the 2020 election. It led to efforts to have his law license stripped, which he fought against for four years to have dismissed. Wilson’s campaign said it cost him more than $100,000 in legal fees.

“I was out supporting the president when he was being impeached in 2019,” Wilson told reporters after he filed to run for governor. “I was out there, went to the United States Supreme Court in a lawsuit with the president’s election integrity efforts, had over 30 complaints filed against me. People tried to take my law license. They were all dismissed. I’ve been out there defending the president’s record, defending the president’s agenda, defending the president’s executive orders, defending the president in every way you can possibly imagine.”

Wilson also supported Trump in August 2016 when the then Republican nominee had spats against a Gold Star family.

“There are campaigns out there that are calling me a never Trumper,” Wilson said in February. “They’ve actually put that in a message, and it’s a categorical lie. The reality is, I have supported the President’s first term. I supported him when he was out of office. I’m supporting him now.”

Wilson has argued that the campaign should be more than whether someone backs Trump.

“This election shouldn’t be about who supported President Trump the longest. It’s about who has the ability to be the kind of leader he is for South Carolina. People are going to go out there and take his name in vain and throw pictures of him everywhere. I think it’s who has a leadership style to be an agent, an agent of change, an agent of reform, right, without being an agent of chaos,” Wilson said.

Standing with Trump early in the president’s 2024 campaign

Being loyal to Trump has been central to Evette’s campaign. She points to how she was the only candidate in the race to stand with Trump in January 2023 when he came to the South Carolina State House to roll out his first endorsers of the 2024 campaign.

Her campaign has two consultants who worked for Trump, Justin Evans and Chris Grant. She’s backed by Gov. Henry McMaster, who was the first statewide official in the country to back Trump in 2016. McMaster and Trump have been loyal to each other since.

“There was just a few of us down in Columbia (the) Saturday when he came down,” Evette said during a forum in Greenville. “But in this race, I’m the only candidate for governor that stood with the president in January of ‘23 when he came here to South Carolina, when there were no polls.”

Evette likes to share the story of how she wanted Trump to be president when he formally entered presidential politics in 2015 kicking off his first campaign for the White House.

“I remember sitting in my office, watching him come down that gold escalator, and I said to my husband, ‘Dave, this is gonna be my guy.’ And he said, ‘why? What do you know about him?’ I said ‘nothing, but I know he’s a developer.’ But what really got me, he was a businessman,” Evette said.

However, a review of federal contributions by Evette and her husband, David, show the earliest she gave to any campaign for federal office was in 2017. And the earliest she gave to Trump was in the 2020 election.

But she maintains she was vocal about Trump during the 2016 campaign.

“I was in the private sector. I wasn’t in this public arena, right? But I heavily supported him. Talked to friends about him, tried to figure out how to get involved,” Evette said in an interview in September.

In October 2016, Evette attended a Trump campaign event in Waxhaw, North Carolina, and even had a picture with the eventual president. McMaster, who has endorsed Evette’s campaign, also spoke at the North Carolina event, according to photos provided by the Evette campaign.

Although there aren’t any FEC records of donations to Trump prior to 2016, Quality Business Solutions which was founded by Evette, gave $3,500 to Wilson in December 2016 and $1,000 to Gov. Nikki Haley in September 2014.

Evette became a more prolific donor after being named as McMaster’s running mate and becoming lieutenant governor. In addition to giving to McMaster’s campaign, she gave to U.S. Reps. Jeff Duncan and Nancy Mace and U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue from Georgia, among others.

According to FEC records, Pamela and David Evette gave $13,200 to Never Surrender Inc., a PAC supporting Trump on Oct. 15, 2024.

The couple gave $20,000 to the Trump 47 joint fundraising committee on the same day.

The lieutenant governor bundled and raised about $1.3 million for a fundraiser in Duluth, Georgia, in August 2024 with Vice President JD Vance, and raised between $200,000 and $250,000 for Trump at an event in Greenville in February 2024, her campaign said.

On Sept. 29, 2020, David Evette gave $2,800 to the Republican National Committee, $5,600 to Trump Victory joint fundraising committee and $2,800 to the Donald J. Trump for President committee.

Evette bundled and raised about $1.2 million for a fundraiser at Lake Keowee with special guests Don Jr. Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle in August 2020.

“The war of the words isn’t so much, who did more? Who was where? It was, who was there when it counted? Who was there when January of 2023 when the President came to South Carolina?” Evette said. “Where was everybody that today is a Trump supporter.”

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