Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) conceded the South Carolina Republican gubernatorial major race Tuesday lower than two hours after polls closed, as returns confirmed the firebrand congresswoman trailing Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette by double digits.
“This isn’t the top of the battle, however it’s the finish of a chapter,” Mace stated in her concession speech, throughout which she endorsed state Lawyer Common Alan Wilson in a runoff race in opposition to Evette.
Mace was garnering solely 11.3% of the vote — placing her in fifth place within the GOP subject — when she admitted defeat.
In the meantime, Evette held about 29% of the vote, whereas Wilson was receiving roughly 26% — each advancing to a runoff election.
President Trump endorsed Evette within the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Henry McMaster on Could 29, in a large blow to the 4 different Republicans within the major subject, together with Mace.
The competitors for the coveted endorsement from the commander-in-chief was fierce and a focus of the race.
All through the first marketing campaign, Mace and Evette, specifically, tried to place themselves as essentially the most Trump-aligned candidate within the race.
Each prominently featured Trump on marketing campaign materials nicely earlier than the president made an endorsement within the race.
“It’s good to have President Trump’s again,” Evette stated final August, in her first marketing campaign advert of the cycle. “I’ve backed him from Day One.”
Mace, who touts her 2024 congressional marketing campaign endorsement from Trump on her social media and web site, accused Evette on the time of deceptive voters.
“Pamela Evette is NOT ENDORSED by DONALD TRUMP. Don’t consider her LIES,” the congresswoman fumed in an X put up the identical day the president would go on to again Evette within the race.
Evette had been the front-runner within the race within the weeks main as much as Trump’s endorsement, in response to polling.
“Extremely Revered and extremely popular Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, Pam Evette, is an America First Patriot who has been with me from the very starting,” Trump wrote in a Reality Social put up granting Evette his seal of approval.
“She by no means wavered, by no means let me down, and was the one South Carolina Gubernatorial Candidate to Endorse me as quickly as I launched my 2024 Presidential Marketing campaign,” he added. “She crisscrossed South Carolina and different States for me, and I stated, on the time, that that is really one thing which I can’t overlook!”
Trump additionally stumped for Evette throughout an election eve tele-rally, the place he dismissed the lieutenant governor’s major competitors as “not severe” and as soon as once more praised her for endorsing him “proper from the start.”
Rep. Ralph Norman. (R-SC), state Lawyer Common Alan Wilson and businessman Rom Reddy had been the opposite Republicans other than Mace operating within the GOP major.
Throughout the identical tele-rally, Evette instructed Trump that the GOP major subject was attempting to “take credit score for being certainly one of your favorites.”
Mace attributed the snub to her help for releasing authorities paperwork associated to convicted intercourse offender Jeffery Epstein.
“I do know I put the chance of an endorsement on the road once I demanded transparency on the Epstein information,” Mace wrote on X. “I demanded it since you deserved the reality – ALL OF IT – and as a survivor of a corrupt and damaged court docket system, I’ll all the time pursue justice for many who deserve it.
“If sacrificing my values is the worth of an endorsement, I’ll by no means pay it.”
The Republican nominee can be closely favored in November.
South Carolina voters haven’t elected a Democrat to the governor’s mansion since 1998.
