How the SC governor’s race became the fight to be Trump’s best friend | Opinion
Ask a Magic 8 Ball which candidate in the South Carolina governor’s race is President Donald Trump’s best friend and the answer might be, “Better not tell you now” or “Reply hazy, try again.” Several of the candidates are fighting for that distinction.
It’s hard to tell who will win and harder still to stomach, and the June 2026 Republican primary that will likely determine who will be the governor of South Carolina through 2034 because of the state’s voting trends is still nine months away.
I sure hope the race is decided on what the candidates will do for us, not for him.
There are too many issues — from South Carolina’s taxation to judicial reform, education, our energy future and the environment — for this race to boil down to who will be the president’s prime propagandist. He doesn’t live here. We do.
Yet Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette launched a $1 million ad campaign to paint herself as Trump’s biggest backer with TV ads during Clemson University’s football season opener Saturday and University of South Carolina’s first game Sunday.
Evette and a Super PAC backing her cut three such ads. “Pamela Evette,” says one. “Conservative warrior. Trump patriot.”
Then Tuesday, as South Carolinians were sharing stories about their Labor Day weekend festivities and reluctantly returning to work, an Evette news release engaged gubernatorial hopeful U.S. Rep Nancy Mace, questioning her loyalty to Trump and, in a new digital ad, nicknaming her “Never Trump Nancy.” Mace shot back, highlighting a “decade of loyalty to President Trump.”
The sharp exchange came just a few days after Mace took aim at another candidate in the race and took credit for “exposing” Attorney General Alan Wilson for “dissing Donald Trump.”
Wilson’s supposed wrongdoing? He told an interviewer, “Now, I want President Trump’s endorsement, but at the end of the day, Alan Wilson is going to be the governor of South Carolina, not Donald Trump.”
Wilson should actually be lauded for saying that. It’s true and it’s what voters want or should want to hear. While many South Carolina residents want the next governor to support the president and have a good working relationship with him — as termed-out Gov. Henry McMaster does — people here also understand that the new governor will have to stand on his or her own.
McMaster’s successor will only overlap with Trump for two of the next four years before the president leaves the White House, meaning with a second term, six of the governor’s eight years would come in a post-Trump political landscape.
Mace’s attempt to make Wilson’s six-second soundbite into a gotcha moment also failed because it’s from a 43-second answer to a Lowcountry TV reporter’s question about Trump’s endorsement. A diss? Wilson’s answer was thoughtful. He said any gubernatorial candidate here would want it but added, “At the end of the day, this office belongs to the people of South Carolina.”
Of course, Wilson’s current office frequently sends out news releases aligning Wilson with Trump: Wilson joined Trump and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to discuss crime and justice reform at the Department of Justice headquarters in March, defended Trump’s authority to restructure the federal workforce and return control of education to the states in April, backed Trump’s action to deploy the National Guard in California in June, supported Trump’s executive order on transgender surgeries in August.
Wilson also defended Trump outside a New York courthouse last year, calling the felony hush-money case against him “a sham.”
Like many South Carolinians, the candidates seem to agree with all of Trump’s executive actions and his aggressive approach. I can’t wait to ask each candidate to name a single instance where they opposed Trump, and why. I wonder if Mace would invoke the comments she made after Jan. 6, 2021, when she criticized Trump’s comments and said “his entire legacy was wiped out.”
She’s since changed her tune. Now, she says she’d be “Trump in high heels.”
Even Trump supporters should be able to see how transparent all this sycophancy is.
It should go without saying that no politician is perfect. Yet it’s hard to find a Republican officeholder who challenges the president.
In South Carolina, McMaster’s approach to Trump may be the one to emulate.
As lieutenant governor in January 2016, McMaster was the first statewide elected official in the country to endorse Trump for president, and he has supported him since, including last month when he sent 200 National Guards troops to Washington, D.C., as part of a divisive effort to ease crime by militarizing the U.S. capital.
But McMaster also avoids getting sucked into the mini controversies that ensnare Trump and some of his loyalists almost daily on social media — and he has defied him before. In June, McMaster, who has long opposed offshore drilling along South Carolina’s coast, asked the Trump administration “to be left out of Trump offshore drilling plan,” as one Reuters headline blared.
McMaster has been that savvy sort of GOP politician who seems to stay above the fray instead of always seeking the approval of a president who is constantly jousting with others and prone to jump into debates over American Eagle jeans and Cracker Barrel.
Do we want a governor whose allegiance to the president involves his every peccadillo? The focus needs to be South Carolina.
The four biggest candidates in the race — Evette, Mace, Wilson and U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman — have all joined Trump in Washington, D.C., this year, for the signing of a bill or an executive order, or in Norman’s case, just this month, at a Purple Heart ceremony.
Norman at least is one of those increasingly rare Republicans who will take a stand against Trump if it’s felt to be warranted. Norman publicly shared reservations about Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill before joining his congressional colleagues in approving the legislation.
The bottom line is that South Carolina is a reliably red state and its voters favor conservative lawmakers who will mind the state’s finances and not move the state to the left. The state’s voters chose Trump over his Democratic challengers in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
So it’s hardly any surprise that South Carolina gubernatorial hopefuls would want to align themselves with the president or work to get his endorsement because it will carry great weight.
But c’mon, candidates. Talk about Trump, sure. Then change the subject, please.
Tell us what really sets you apart from your opponents, not how much more you love the president than them.
Matthew T. Hall is McClatchy’s South Carolina opinion editor. Email him at mhall@thestate.com.
This story was originally published September 4, 2025 at 5:00 AM.