(The Center Square) – South Carolinians on Tuesday will choose a candidate in the Republican gubernatorial primary runoff.
Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette carries the endorsement of second-term Republican President Donald Trump against state Attorney General Alan Wilson. Wilson is the son of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson.
Two other statewide seats and three congressional bids also have runoffs.
Republicans are choosing between Stephen Goldfinch Jr. and David Stumbo for attorney general and Danny Ford and Cody Simpson for agriculture commissioner. Ford is the son and namesake of the former Clemson legendary football coach that guided the Tigers to the 1981 national championship.
In the 1st Congressional District, Republicans choose between Jenny Costa Honeycutt and Mark Smith and Democrats between Nancy Lacore and Mac Deford. In the 2nd Congressional District, Democrats choose between David Robinson II and Zyon Khalifa.
Evette is campaigning on standing by Trump and his “American First Agenda”; eliminating the state income tax; a DOGE-style proposal to launch SCOGE, the South Carolina Office of Government Efficiency; and accountability for elected officials and elections.
Wilson is campaigning on protection of families and communities, and their values. He hopes to lower taxes, empower parents in their child’s pursuit of education, has plans for infrastructure, and wants to expand access to rural healthcare.
Republicans will be favored in all but one of seven U.S. House races in the fall, and in Sen. Lindsey Graham’s reelection bid. South Carolina is emblematic of the Deep South’s change from blue to red over the last half century.
In Congress, Sen. Fritz Hollings was appointed to fill an unexpired term in 1966 and won reelection six times before retiring in 1998 – the last Democrat from the state in the chamber. Sen. Tim Scott succeeded Republican Jim DeMint in that seat in the 2012 election and remains entrenched.
Graham’s seat has been in Republican hands even longer. He succeeded the legendary Sen. Strom Thurmond, the former Democrat when elected in 1956 who changed to the Republican Party in 1964 and won six of seven reelections in red.
A win by Graham in November would mean the two men could hold the seat for three quarters of a century.
The last Democrat to win the governor’s office, Jim Hodges in 1998, was also the last one-term governor. It’s all the way back to the 1978 and 1982 elections of Richard Wilson Riley to find the Democrat before Hodges.
That’s a definitive turn in the last half century of elections from those of 1868 through 1970. Over those 102 years, a Democrat won the governor’s race every time.
Republicans have also dominated statewide offices for more than a decade. And they’ve done in districts.
Today’s state Senate is 34-12 Republican majority, and the House of Representatives is 88-36 Republican majority. Republicans have had majorities for seven four-year cycles in the Senate, dating to 2000, and 16 two-year cycles in the House, dating to 1994.
South Carolina has 3,383,591 registered voters.
