President Trump threw his weight behind South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette in the state's crowded Republican gubernatorial primary, rewarding her early loyalty to his 2024 campaign and delivering a pointed snub to Rep. Nancy Mace, a onetime ally whose push for transparency on the Jeffrey Epstein files helped fracture her relationship with the White House.
Trump posted the endorsement Friday on Truth Social, calling Evette "an America First Patriot who has been with me from the very beginning." In a six-candidate field that includes two sitting members of Congress and the state attorney general, the president singled out Evette as the only gubernatorial hopeful who backed him the moment he launched his 2024 presidential bid.
The move lands barely two weeks before the June 9 primary and reshapes a race in which Trump's favor had been the most coveted prize. South Carolina is deep-red territory, Trump won it in three consecutive presidential elections, and his endorsement carries enormous weight in a primary where every major candidate has tried to wrap themselves in his agenda. As the AP noted, the competition for the president's support "has been the most intense part of the primary race."
Trump's endorsement message left no ambiguity about what earned Evette the nod. He praised her for crisscrossing South Carolina and other states on his behalf during the 2024 cycle, writing that her early support was "truly something which I cannot forget." He outlined a policy platform for her candidacy that tracks his own priorities, tax cuts, deregulation, border security, Second Amendment protections, and election integrity.
Trump also praised Henry McMaster Jr., the son of term-limited Gov. Henry McMaster, who is expected to run alongside Evette as her lieutenant governor candidate. Trump called the younger McMaster "brilliant and very competent," a signal that the outgoing governor's political family will remain central to the state's Republican apparatus.
Evette responded on X with a message tying her political career directly to Trump's 2015 campaign launch, as the Washington Examiner reported:
"Your walk down that golden escalator is what propelled me into politics. You showed what a businessperson can do to make America Great Again. I am incredibly grateful for your support and will never let you down."
Evette had already been leading in some polls ahead of the primary. The endorsement cements her as the frontrunner in a race where a runoff, scheduled for June 23 if no candidate wins an outright majority, remains a real possibility with six names on the ballot.
The endorsement stung for Mace, who had positioned herself as a fighter aligned with Trump's combative style. But the congresswoman's relationship with the White House soured after she signed a discharge petition forcing a House vote on compelling the Department of Justice to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The White House reportedly pressured Mace to remove her signature. She refused.
Trump's decision to back a rival candidate follows a pattern of the president intervening directly in Republican primaries to shape the party's bench. In this case, the intervention doubles as a warning: cross the White House on a sensitive matter, and the political cost may follow you into your next race.
Mace did not go quietly. In a statement, she framed the endorsement as a product of establishment deal-making rather than grassroots conservatism:
"We have a state that's corrupt. A system that's broken. And an establishment who wants to stay in the shadows. It's been that way for the last decade since Pam Evette's been in office, and with the governor's son Henry Jr. as her running mate, South Carolina can expect more of the same."
She added a line that read like a declaration of independence from the endorsement chase: "If this is the price of an endorsement, I will never pay it." She said she still holds "enormous respect" for Trump but believes the state needs change.
Hours before the official endorsement dropped, Mace had posted an AI-generated video on X featuring herself and Trump, with the message: "Pamela Evette is NOT ENDORSED by DONALD TRUMP. Do not believe her LIES." In a follow-up post, Mace accused Evette of "lying about Trump's endorsement for over a year" and alleged that Evette's administration had botched a redistricting fight, a claim she did not elaborate on in detail.
The timing of those posts suggests Mace had some advance warning the endorsement was coming and tried to preempt it. If so, it didn't work.
Mace is not the only candidate who took the snub hard. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, another contender in the six-person field, issued his own pointed response on X:
"No one's fought harder or risked more for President Trump and his agenda than I have. I look forward to continuing to deliver real results for South Carolina families as their next Governor."
Wilson's claim, that no one has fought harder for Trump's agenda, implicitly challenges the loyalty argument Trump used to justify Evette's endorsement. Whether that message resonates with primary voters who take their cues from the president remains to be seen. South Carolina's competitive primaries have produced surprises before, as recent polling in the state's Senate race has shown.
The remaining candidates, Rep. Ralph Norman, former business executive Rom Reddy, and state Sen. Josh Kimbrell, did not issue public statements captured in the immediate aftermath. Norman, like Mace, is a sitting congressman, and a source close to the White House quoted by Newsmax lumped the two together: "Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman sabotaged Trump when it mattered most. Their reward shouldn't be the governor's mansion."
That quote, from an unnamed source, suggests the endorsement decision was not solely about rewarding Evette but also about punishing members of Congress who broke with the administration at key moments. Trump allies reportedly raised concerns about Mace's criticism of the administration's foreign policy in addition to the Epstein files dispute.
The Epstein files issue looms over the endorsement in ways that deserve more scrutiny. Mace signed a discharge petition, a procedural tool that forces a floor vote without committee approval, to compel the Justice Department to release records related to Epstein's sex-trafficking network. The White House pressured her to withdraw her signature. She didn't.
That sequence raises an uncomfortable question for the administration. Transparency on the Epstein files is broadly popular with the conservative base. Trump himself campaigned on promises of accountability and openness. Mace's decision to force the issue put her on the side of disclosure, a position most Republican voters would instinctively support.
Yet the political fallout landed squarely on Mace. Whether voters in South Carolina view her stand as principled or as a breach of team loyalty will be one of the defining tensions of the final two weeks before the primary. The dynamic echoes the broader challenge facing Republican incumbents who must weigh their own judgment against the demands of presidential loyalty, a tension playing out in contested races across the South.
Trump's endorsement of Evette was part of a broader Friday push in which he backed gubernatorial candidates in three states. Breitbart reported that the South Carolina endorsement highlighted Evette's commitment to the America First agenda and her active role campaigning for Trump across multiple states. He also endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra in Iowa and former state Sen. Mike Mazzei in Oklahoma, a coordinated effort to shape the Republican gubernatorial map heading into 2026.
In South Carolina, the endorsement consolidates the establishment lane behind Evette. With the sitting governor's backing, the president's endorsement, and the McMaster name on her ticket as a running mate, she enters the final stretch with institutional advantages that will be difficult for any rival to overcome.
The question is whether the anti-establishment energy that Mace is trying to channel, casting herself as the outsider willing to defy the powers that be, can generate enough turnout to force a runoff. In a state where Trump's word carries the force of political gravity, that's a steep climb. But Mace's defiant tone suggests she intends to make the argument that loyalty to principle should matter more than loyalty to any single endorsement.
Trump's influence in shaping the next generation of Republican leaders continues to ripple through primary races nationwide, from early 2028 positioning to gubernatorial contests that will determine who governs red states for the next four years.
In South Carolina, the message from the top is clear enough. The voters will decide whether they agree, or whether they think a congresswoman who refused to back down on the Epstein files deserves something other than a cold shoulder.
