By Nolan D. McCaskill
WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) - Republicans Pamela Evette and Alan Wilson advanced to a runoff in South Carolina's tightly contested gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, U.S. media projected.
Evette will face Wilson in a June 23 runoff after no candidate topped 50%.
With 63% of the votes counted, Evette was leading the pack of Republican candidates. She had secured the endorsement of President Donald Trump. The result was a blow to U.S. Representative Nancy Mace, who trailed Evette and Wilson.
The race will decide a successor to term-limited Republican Governor Henry McMaster, with the Republican nominee chosen in the runoff favored to win the governorship in November.
On the Democratic side, state Representative Jermaine Johnson was projected as the winner of the party's three-way primary.
A TEST OF TRUMP'S CLOUT
The crowded Republican primary was a test of Trump's endorsement after voters in Iowa last week rejected his choice for governor, ending a streak in which Trump ousted Republican Senators John Cornyn, Bill Cassidy and Representative Thomas Massie in May primaries.
Trump had endorsed South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette over Attorney General Alan Wilson and U.S. Representatives Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman. Businessman Rom Reddy and State Senator Josh Kimbrell, who withdrew from the race last week, were also on the ballot.
Trump endorsed Evette on May 29, saying she stood with him "from the very beginning."
"She never wavered, never let me down, and was the only South Carolina Gubernatorial Candidate to Endorse me as soon as I launched my 2024 Presidential Campaign," the president wrote on Truth Social.
Evette also led the field in fundraising with a $3.5 million haul. She loaned her campaign an additional $1 million, according to her most recent financial disclosure.
Wilson raised $3.2 million, Mace $2.5 million and Norman $1.8 million. Norman loaned his campaign nearly $3.8 million.
Reddy, whose campaign has accepted no donations or endorsements, pumped nearly $6 million of his wealth into his candidacy.
Trump won South Carolina by nearly 18 percentage points in 2024. But a handful of Republicans in the state Senate defied Trump last month, voting against an effort to redraw the state's congressional map to oust its lone Democrat, Representative Jim Clyburn.
(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill; Editing by Howard Goller and Ed Davies)
