South Carolina Republicans have chosen their candidate for governor after a runoff that produced a clear winner. According to the reporting, Attorney General Alan Wilson gave his victory speech as the GOP nominee for governor in the state, sealing his place on the November ballot. The result settled a contest that had narrowed to two contenders after the first round of voting.
The margin in the runoff was decisive once the ballots were tallied through the night. According to the reporting, with about 98 percent of the estimated vote counted, Wilson led with 69 percent of the vote share while his opponent stood at 31 percent. That left a 38-point gap, a margin that observers noted had widened as the evening went on.
The candidate he defeated had appeared to hold an early edge in the broader contest. According to the reporting, Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette had finished in first place in the June 9 primary and was the only candidate carrying an endorsement heading into that initial vote. Despite that early lead, she trailed by a wide margin in the runoff against Wilson.
President Trump's role in the race became a talking point as the runoff played out. According to the reporting, Trump and his team saw that Wilson was making gains in the runoff, and they chose to issue a dual endorsement of the two candidates. Analysts framed that move as a way to avoid hurting the president's win-loss record in primary contests.
The outcome added to a pattern that commentators have been tracking this cycle. According to the reporting, analysts pointed to the difficulty lieutenant governors have had in making the jump to the top job around the country. They also linked Evette's loss to other recent results, citing Randy Feenstra's loss in Iowa and Burt Jones's loss in Georgia as part of a trend.
Together, those races suggested that a presidential endorsement no longer guarantees victory in a Republican primary. According to the reporting, the combination of outcomes started to show what observers described as a little bit of vulnerability, or a lack of power, in the value of the endorsement that had been extremely important for years. For Wilson, the win caps 16 years he spent working as attorney general before this run for governor.