- BIG STORY: S.C. runoff sprint barrels toward Tuesday close
- ROUNDUP: S.C. remembers Emanuel A.M.E. massacre
- LOWCOUNTRY, Ariail: Yep, it’s a runoff
- BRACK: The 2028 election can’t come soon enough
- MYSTERY PHOTO: Fountain and more
- FEEDBACK: Send us your thoughts
S.C. runoff sprint barrels toward Tuesday close
By Jack O’Toole, Statehouse bureau | With South Carolina’s two-week runoff sprint barreling into its final weekend, the contentious GOP governor’s race between Lt. Governor Pamela Evette and state Attorney General Alan Wilson continued to dominate headlines as the candidates sought to position themselves for the Tuesday showdown.
For Evette, that meant trying to put to bed a controversy kicked off by President Donald Trump when he paired his May 29 endorsement of the lieutenant governor with an announcement that he expected her to pick the governor’s son, Henry McMaster Jr., as her running mate.
“To be very clear, and as I’ve said before and will say again, Henry D. McMaster Jr. will not be my running mate,” Evette said Thursday in a campaign video before rattling off the names of nine people she’s considering for the position.
Those potential running mates are: former Trump Commerce Department official Joe Semsar; former state Rep. Adam Morgan; current state Reps. Jordan Pace, Patrick Haddon, Tommy Pope, Case Brittain and James Teeple; Florence attorney Hood Temple; and Horry County Councilman Tyler Servant.
Meanwhile, the Wilson campaign worked to counter-program Evette’s announcement by spotlighting a state government performance and efficiency audit he’s asked his already-announced running mate, Florence Sen. Mike Reichenbach, to lead if elected.
“While my opponent is still delaying making a decision on who she will pick as her running mate,” Wilson said in a release, “we’ve already put together a team and a plan to make South Carolina stronger, safer, and more affordable.”
A raucous debate
The late-week campaign jockeying followed a high-stakes Tuesday night TV debate that saw both candidates throw political haymakers and conservative red meat to a raucous crowd at Coastal Carolina University.
“While my opponent was cutting ribbons in a ceremonial job and wasting time in the lieutenant governor’s office, I was out there fighting for you,” Wilson said in an opening statement that highlighted his active duty combat service and record as attorney general.
Cracking back in her response, Evette reframed Wilson’s four terms in office as a negative for GOP voters.
“There’s two of us on stage now and the choice will be really clear: You can pick a Trump-endorsed businesswoman or you can pick a career politician,” Evette said, gesturing toward her opponent.
Things only turned crankier as the night wore on, as each candidate accused the other of lying in campaign materials.
In particular, Evette took umbrage at Wilson’s claim that her company’s diversity consulting made her a “DEI queen,” saying “he knows full well that I did not profit from DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion).
Meanwhile, Wilson denounced an Evette TV ad that suggests he raised his own salary as attorney general when it was imposed in 2022 by a legislature-controlled compensation commission.
But on a night when the candidates could find little to disagree about on the issues, from expanding private school vouchers to eliminating the state income tax, one major difference did emerge on the question of casino gambling.
Wilson, like Evette’s mentor McMaster, said he has “serious concerns,” citing law enforcement concerns. Conversely, Evette argued that it should be a referendum question for voters.
“If it has a good impact, then you’ve got to take it to the people when it comes to casinos,” she said.
Major endorsements and a Trump rumor
As both campaigns rolled out major state and national endorsements throughout the week, political analysts said the largest prize of the week may have gone to Wilson, when former candidate and 5th District U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, who won four Upstate counties on his way to a third-place finish on June 9, came the attorney general’s way.
In a series of statements and social media posts, Norman hit repeatedly on the casino gambling issue.
“We will not become the Las Vegas of the Southeast despite what Pam Evette’s donors want,” Norman said in a Thursday social media post. “On June 23rd, vote for @AGAlanWilson, a battle-tested conservative who won’t put a price tag on South Carolina values.”
Complicating the endorsement picture further for Evette was a June 16 Washington Post report indicating that Trump, who’s said to be concerned about current polling in the race, was considering a new dual endorsement that would include both Evette and Wilson.
“I’ve already endorsed the president, and if he were to endorse me, it would of course mean a lot,” Wilson told reporters Tuesday. “But at the end of the day, the most important endorsement is the endorsement each voter gives me when they walk into that booth and check my name on their ballot.”
Evette dismissed the report in a June 18 interview with MyHorryNews, calling it “hearsay.”
“What I will tell you with a hundred percent certainty is the president called me Tuesday night after I won and told me I had his full support, that he was proud of me and he was going to do whatever he can to help me win big on the 23rd,” Evette said.
With both candidates showing significant election-night strength across the state and able to compete financially, political watchers tell Statehouse Report they expect the race to go down to the wire.
Other major runoffs on Tuesday’s ballot
In addition to the GOP governor’s runoff, Republicans will return to the polls Tuesday to settle two statewide races.
In the state attorney general’s race, Georgetown Sen. Stephen Goldfinch is facing off against 8th Circuit Solicitor David Stumbo. And for Agriculture Commissioner, Cody Simpson is squaring off against Danny Ford II.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the 1st Congressional District will settle a race between Berkeley County Rep. Mark Smith and Charleston County Councilwoman Jenny Honeycutt.
On the Democratic side, there are no statewide runoffs, but two congressional races.
In the 1st Congressional District, voters will choose between retired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore and Coast Guard veteran and attorney Mac Deford.
And in the 2nd District, voters will choose either David Robinson II or Zyon Khalifa, both military veterans, to take on incumbent GOP Rep. Joe Wilson, who happens to be Alan Wilson’s father.
All valid S.C. voters who did not participate in the other party’s primary on June 9 are eligible to vote in the runoff primaries.
Jack O’Toole is Statehouse bureau chief for Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
S.C. remembers Emanuel A.M.E. massacre
Staff reports | Eleven years after a racist gunman murdered nine parishioners during a Bible study in the basement of Charleston’s Emanuel A.M.E. Church, South Carolinians paused Wednesday to remember the tragedy.
“Eleven years ago today, South Carolina witnessed a horrific act of hatred and violence at Mother Emanuel AME Church,” Gov. Henry McMaster said in a June 17 social media statement. “We remember the nine lives taken in this tragedy and continue to pray for their families, loved ones, and the congregation.”
In the aftermath of the massacre, S.C. lawmakers voted to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds, though the state remains one of only two without a hate crimes law. Efforts to close the “Charleston loophole” that allowed the killer to purchase his gun illegally also remain stymied at the federal and state levels.
In Charleston, the church held its annual day of remembrance with prayer, reflection focused on the theme, “Out of many, we are one.”
Emanuel’s pastor, the Rev. Eric Manning, said the support of the community 11 years after the tragedy showed the church that it wasn’t alone: “We are a community and though this horrific event took place here at Mother Emanuel, the members and founders continue to heal through their process, and it is always encouraging when the community comes together and rallies.”
In other recent news
ELECTIONS: 1-on-1 with 1st District’s Democratic candidates. Democratic candidates Mac Deford and Nancy Lacore held one-on-one conversations on key issues facing South Carolinians, including infrastructure, affordability, and plans for the district’s future.
- Honeycutt, Smith square off in 1st District GOP debate
- S.C. legislator declared primary winner by just 34 votes
Pinball law reined in across state. A new law allows children and teens in S.C. to legally play pinball. An old ban was rarely enforced, but the new law removes a sore spot for business owners.
S.C. Supreme Court to decide how much stays secret about executions. The issue is part of an ongoing challenge to a 2023 law expanding protections to companies that provide lethal injection drugs.
Federal judge says Trump administration wrong on S.C. grant. A federal judge in Charleston ruled that the Trump administration’s decision to end an environmental justice grant program was unlawful.
State child care audit reveals licensing delays. The Department of Social Services does not consistently track the child care licensing process, leaving providers waiting months for answers when the process should take 30 days.
250th: S.C. Historical Society celebrates America’s 250th birthday with free admissions. The South Carolina Historical Society is inviting the public to celebrate Carolina Days and the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution with free museum admission, exhibitions and a full schedule of programs at the Fireproof Building from June 23 to July 4.
Yep, it’s a runoff
Award-winning cartoonist Robert Ariail has a special knack for poking a little fun in just the right way. This week, he takes a poke at the messiness of a gubernatorial primary runoff.
- Love this week’s cartoon or hate it? Did he go too far, or not far enough? Send your thoughts to feedback@statehousereport.com.
Brack: The 2028 election can’t come soon enough
Commentary by Andy Brack | The Trump Administration continues to be an embarrassment for lovers of liberty.
It seems to screw up just about everything it touches or so corrodes what America’s democracy has stood for that it has made our nation a laughing stock again and again.
The world breathed a sigh of relief in 2021 when Joe Biden and the adults took office to lead the United States. But in 2025 with the return of a grumpy, petulant, conspiracy-fueled Donald Trump to the White House, it’s gotten way, way worse. You may not have liked Biden – and he had some failures – but he turned the tide on Covid to help the country recover, invested in America to strengthen neglected infrastructure, showed world leadership on Ukraine. His economic policies improved the economy and generated more than 2 million jobs.
Trump and his lackeys, on the other hand, used a no-bid contract to a big supporter for renovations of the National Mall’s reflecting pool to make it blue, only to have it turn green again within weeks thanks to algal blooms.
They denigrated the White House grounds by removing a symbolic rose garden. They tore down a wing for an ill-conceived, unnecessary ballroom where costs are escalating. And, of all things, they littered the lawn into a tacky spectacle for a mixed martial arts humiliation.
They knocked up Trump’s name and image all over the place, from the Kennedy Center (removed by a judge) to National Park passes to passports. There are even Soviet-style banners of his face on some federal buildings in Washington. And don’t forget his planned huge and garish arched monument that would be in full view of the stately Lincoln Memorial.
Since being sworn in for the second time, the national embarrassments created by this unhealthy, sleepy president have expanded from surface branding to deeper intrusions into what has made our country special.
Trump got America into a war with Iran that he supposedly ended this month by backtracking to where we were before the war. The country spent gazillions, bombed and killed innocent people and interrupted global commerce – only to return to the status quo. This agreement embarrassingly signed in Versailles to reopen the Strait of Hormuz got us what new that we didn’t have before? Experienced, strategic foreign policy at work? Nah, just the modern version of the Keystone Cops.
The list of disgraces goes on. Now the administration apparently is planning to sell or give away 11 immigration warehouses worth $700 million that it once said it just had to have. Officials are still quietly working to snare Greenland. Trump blustered to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. And he tried to create a $1.8 billion fund to pay the convicted felons who attacked the U.S. Capital while ignoring the police officers killed in the melee.
Also on this Executive Branch’s misadministration list: It threw ethical standards out of the door by accepting a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar that many call a bribe. It sold pardons. It continually talks about rigged elections (not true) to confuse voters and create distrust in a process for Americans to exercise a key and fundamental democratic right.
Here in South Carolina, future impacts of the administration’s intentional neglect will be telling. What happens, for example, if a hurricane devastates the state? One thing is for sure – the Federal Emergency Management Agency won’t come running to fix things like it used to because Trump has gutted it, just like it impaired the National Weather Service’s resources to do its job.
Across the country as Americans prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of declaring our shores to be independent of tyranny, we’ve got a childish despot in office who is wrecking what we’ve stood for in a bipartisan manner for generations.
The 2028 presidential election can’t come soon enough. Maybe the adults will return.
Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
Fountain and more
Here’s a mystery fountain somewhere in South Carolina. Where and what is it? Bonus points: tell us a story about it. Send in your best guess – and your name and hometown – to feedback@statehousereport.com. And if you have a mystery photo to share, send that along too (but tell us what it is because we’re horrible guessers.)
According to sleuth Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas, last week’s photo, “Rusty contraption,” showed a waterwheel on the north fork of the Edisto River as it runs through Edisto Memorial Gardens in Orangeburg.
“Crafted in 1941, this waterwheel was inspired by a photograph that was published in the National Geographic magazine in the late 1930s, and was built onto a floating barge structure with pontoons,” he wrote. “This allows the wheel to automatically rise and fall with the fluctuating river tide, while keeping the paddles dipped into the river current to spin continuously.”
Others who correctly identified the waterwheel were Philip Cromer of Beaufort; Jay Altman of Columbia; Will Bradley of Las Vegas; Frank Bouknight of Summerville; George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; and Ann Nolte of St. Matthews.
- SHARE: If you have a Mystery Photo to share, please send it to us – and make sure you tell us what it is!
Send us your thoughts
Please send us your thoughts about politics and policy in South Carolina, but make sure to leave phone numbers and hometowns to help us verify them for publication. We publish non-defamatory comments, but unless you provide your contact information – name and hometown, plus a phone number used only by us for verification – we can’t publish your views.
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Statehouse Report, founded in 2001 as a weekly legislative forecast that informs readers about what is going to happen in South Carolina politics and policy, is provided by email to you at no charge every Friday.
- Editor and publisher: Andy Brack, 843.670.3996
- Statehouse bureau chief: Jack O’Toole
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