In a move that supporters characterized as “aggressive” and opponents called “desperate,” Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette opened the state’s Republican gubernatorial runoff this week with a shotgun blast of contestable claims about the record and character of her opponent, state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
The attacks followed a tight statewide primary Tuesday that saw the President Donald Trump-endorsed Evette narrowly top a five-person field of GOP hopefuls, garnering 29% of the vote to Wilson’s 26% that pushed the two into a June 23 runoff election.
“In this runoff,” Evette wrote in a Wednesday morning social media post, “it’s a simple choice between a career politician with no business experience who lines his pockets with your tax dollars OR a @realDonaldTrump endorsed businesswoman and conservative who’s going to take the fight to the radical left for you and your family.”
Later that day and into Thursday, the Evette campaign rolled out additional posts and a 30-second TV spot aimed at substantiating the claims — all of which Wilson disputes.
“While my opponent focuses on mudslinging and baseless claims that are provably false, I’m focused on delivering results,” he said Thursday.
A personal brawl?
Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon explained that intraparty contests like the high-profile gubernatorial runoff can quickly turn into personal brawls when the candidates mostly agree on the issues.
“If there’s no inherent policy difference, you’ve got to differentiate yourself on the character of the person,” Huffmon told Statehouse Report. “So when you can’t run policy ads legitimately, then you wind up with ad hominem attacks.”
Also possibly contributing to Evette’s strategy: Despite a close first-place finish Tuesday night, she appeared to have gotten a smaller “Trump bump” than many other GOP endorsees around the country.
“In the majority of primaries where he’s endorsed, his candidate just shot to victory,” Huffmon said. “But his endorsement just didn’t have the same impact in this race, arguably because of all the accusations about quid-pro-quo backroom deals.”
Huffmon was referring to widely reported rumors, amplified by social media, that Trump’s endorsement was the result of a possible deal between the president and Gov. Henry McMaster — a charge McMaster denied publicly after Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, told reporters on May 14 that he hoped there was no “corrupt bargain” to secure an endorsement.
“Whether the conspiracy accusations are true or not,” Huffmon said, “it looks like they had an impact in blunting Trump’s endorsement.”
The inaccurate accusations against Wilson
Since Tuesday’s primary, Evette has leveled at least four specific allegations against Wilson, three of which were highlighted in a Thursday morning social media post that referred to the attorney general as a “corrupt, self-dealing career politician.”
“Wilson more than DOUBLED his taxpayer-funded salary, accepting a 126% pay raise,” Evette said. “Wilson used your tax dollars to pay off his friends, giving $70 million of no-bid government contracts to campaign donors who bankrolled his campaign. Wilson nearly had to resign in disgrace in the wake of a corruption investigation.”
The Evette campaign didn’t reply by press time to a request for further information regarding the charges, particularly the claim that Wilson “nearly had to resign.”
A Wilson campaign spokesman called the allegations “easily disprovable” in a Thursday email exchange with the City Paper, attaching a document that addressed the issues one-by-one.
The 2022 pay raise, the document noted, was imposed by a state compensation commission created by the legislature, not sought by Wilson — a refutation backed up by former Democratic state Rep. Mandy Powers Norell in a Thursday social media post.
“We forced it on him and many other agency heads [because] they were making so much less than others they supervised,” Norell wrote. “They had no say in it at all. He was making less than solicitors.”
Regarding the claim that Wilson directed “$70 million” to supporters — a charge that appears to refer to his use of outside attorneys on a contingency basis to secure a $600 million settlement from the federal government regarding plutonium at the Savannah River Site — the campaign called it “the highest-ever settlement for state taxpayers” in S.C. history.
The contingency arrangement, which the attorney general’s office said was necessary to attract outside attorneys with relevant experience and expertise, was later upheld unanimously by the state Supreme Court.
Finally is the charge that he “nearly had to resign following a corruption investigation.” This appears to refer to a 2017 S.C. Democratic Party press release calling on Wilson to resign after he attempted to fire special prosecutor David Pascoe during a Statehouse corruption probe. But Wilson’s campaign noted that he then “ran for re-election and actually won by a larger margin than the Governor/Lt. Gov ticket.”
In the long-running series of legal challenges that followed, the state Supreme Court ruled that Pascoe could remain in place, but later narrowed the scope of his prosecutorial authority, leading Pascoe to turn over his remaining case files to Wilson’s office.
Also on Thursday, the Evette campaign promoted a press conference by three of her Statehouse supporters attacking Wilson for asking lawmakers to support former Democratic Rep. James Smith’s nomination for a judgeship.
The Wilson campaign responded that the nomination was made by a committee controlled by the GOP supermajority legislature, and that the committee had nominated two Democrats and no Republicans for the seat.
The legislature eventually decided to reject Smith’s nomination and start the process again.
What to look for through June 23
Looking ahead, Citadel political science professor Mark Owens identified strong spots for each campaign coming out of the first round — strengths that he expects each campaign to try to enhance or mitigate in the days ahead.
First, he said to look for Evette to focus on the Lowcountry, where Wilson overperformed Tuesday — and where a hotly contested GOP 1st Congressional District runoff between Charleston County Councilwoman Jenny Honeycutt and Berkeley Rep. Mark Smith will draw Wilson’s voters back out to the polls.
Next, he pointed to the four Upstate counties where 5th District U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman carried a plurality of the vote on his way to a third-place finish on election night.
Those counties, Owens said, might see more on-the-ground campaigning from the candidates and their surrogates than is typical in modern campaigns because they’re in the Charlotte media market — making traditional TV buys expensive and inefficient.
Finally, Owens said he expects both campaigns to try to maximize a finding that’s appeared in Citadel polling on the race — namely, Evette’s advantage with people who’ve moved to the state in the past 10 years, and Wilson’s corresponding advantage with South Carolina natives.
“For people who are very strong in their partisanship and just moved to the state, those voters are most drawn to Evette by President Trump’s endorsement,” Owens said, noting her election-night strength in newcomer-rich Horry County. “And the fact that those who were born here are often in [large metros] like Columbia can help the attorney general in the race.”
Asked what he expects over the runoff’s final days, Winthrop’s Huffmon chuckled, and noted that in the Palmetto State, politics is usually a contact sport.
“Oh, there’s a good chance this will get nastier,” Huffmon said. “We’re going to see people drawing blood — because that’s what happens in South Carolina.”
Jack O’Toole is Statehouse bureau chief for Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.
