Pamela Evette and Alan Wilson Advance to South Carolina GOP Governor Runoff

South Carolina Republicans sent Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and state Attorney General Alan Wilson into a June 23 runoff for the GOP gubernatorial nomination on Tuesday, after no candidate in the crowded field cleared the 50 percent threshold needed to win the primary outright.

Evette, who secured President Donald Trump's endorsement roughly a week and a half before the primary, and Wilson, the state's long-serving attorney general, finished as the top two vote-getters. Both are vying to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, and in a deeply conservative state, the winner of the runoff will enter November's general election as a heavy favorite.

The primary field was unusually high-profile. It included Rep. Nancy Mace, whose nationally visible campaign nonetheless left her in fifth place; Rep. Ralph Norman, a fixture of the House Freedom Caucus; and businessman Rom Reddy. Mace's underwhelming finish was among the night's surprises, given the attention she drew throughout the race.

Wilson, who has cultivated an image as a conservative culture warrior during his tenure as attorney general, said he and Mace had "buried our hatchet" after early tensions between their campaigns. Evette, a businesswoman who has served as McMaster's lieutenant governor, enters the runoff with the advantage of Trump's backing in a state where the president remains overwhelmingly popular among Republican voters.

The two-week sprint to the runoff is expected to be intense, with both candidates racing to consolidate support from the eliminated contenders and their backers. Turnout in a low-profile June runoff is notoriously difficult to predict, and the result could turn on which campaign does the better job of mobilizing its voters.

The runoff also serves as another measure of Trump's grip on the South Carolina Republican electorate. His late endorsement of Evette injected fresh energy into her campaign, and Wilson will spend the next two weeks arguing that his record as attorney general makes him the more battle-tested choice. Strategists on both sides expect a barrage of advertising as the candidates court the conservative base that will decide the nomination.

Whoever prevails will be positioned to keep the governor's mansion in Republican hands. South Carolina has not elected a Democratic governor since 1998, and McMaster's term limit created the first open-seat race for the office in years, drawing the deep and combative field that voters narrowed on Tuesday. The outcome of the June 23 runoff will, in all likelihood, determine who becomes the state's next governor when voters head to the polls in November.