(The Center Square) – Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and state Attorney General Alan Wilson on Tuesday advanced to a runoff in two weeks for the Republican ticket in the South Carolina governor’s race.
Evette, endorsed by second-term Republican President Donald Trump, and Wilson, son of Republican 13-term U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, easily cleared three other candidates in the field. Evette (28.9%) and Wilson (26.2%) gained more than half of the nearly 465,000 votes cast ahead of U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman (17.1%), coastal businessman and political outsider Rom Reddy (14.2%) and U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (12.1%) in the unofficial returns.
State Rep. Jermaine Johsnon won the Democrats’ primary. Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, appointed in 2017 to fill the vacancy created by former Gov. Nikki Haley going to the United Nations, won the limit of two consecutive terms in 2020 and 2024. He turned 79 last month and is the oldest to serve in the office.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, bidding for a fifth term, charged past Greenville businessman Mark Lynch 56.8%-28.9%. He’ll face Charleston pediatrician Dr. Annie Andrews, a 61.5%-30.2% winner over Brandon Brown in the Democratic primary in one of 35 races for the chamber – two by special election, and 33 in regular schedule.
Graham, turning 71 five days after America turns 250, has been in the Beltway since first winning election – first of four terms – to the House of Representatives in 1994. He began his tenure in the Senate in 2002. In this 119th Congress, he’s chairman of the Committee on the Budget and has seats on committees for appropriations; environment and public works; and the judiciary.
His time in the 116th, from January 2019 to January 2021, included chairmanship of the Committee on the Judiciary. Confirmations sailed through for Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, and more than 200 federal judges appointed by Trump.
Democratic U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, just over a month away from his 86th birthday, easily defeated Frederick Goodwin in the 6th Congressional District in his bid for an 18th term. State Senate Republicans halted Trump's request to redraw congressional maps for the midterms, enabling his district to remain intact.
Clyburn is the only Democrat from the state in Congress.
Also advancing were Joe Wilson in the 2nd Congressional District; Democrat Eunice Lehmacher in the 3rd Congressional District; Republican incumbent Rep. William Timmons in the 4th Congressional District; Democrat Mallory Dittmer in the 5th Congressional District; and Republican John Peterson in the 6th Congressional District.
In June 23 runoffs, in the 1st Congressional District, Republicans Jenny Costa Honeycutt (22.1%) and Mark Smith (18%) advanced from a five-candidate field and Democrats Nancy Lacore (36.5%) and Mac Deford (28.9%) advanced from a five-candidate field.
In the 2nd Congressional District, Democrats David Robinson II (41%) and Zyon Khalifa (34.1%) advanced from a four-candidate field.
Multiple congressional district primaries were uncontested.
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.
The South Carolina Election Commission said early voting set a record with 318,600 ballots cast statewide. In the last midterm in 2022, early voting turnout was 100,450.
The presidential cycle in 2024 drew 120,178 early votes.
South Carolina has 3,383,591 registered voters. The governor’s race drew 464,925 ballots.
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