Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Alan Wilson, the state attorney general, now head to a runoff in the Republican contest for governor. President Trump vowed to “fight” for Ms. Evette in the second round.
Just under two weeks before the Republican primary for governor, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette of South Carolina clinched what she had long worked for: an endorsement from President Trump.
But in a crowded field of ambitious conservatives who had similar platforms, that was not enough for an outright victory on Tuesday night. Ms. Evette will now face Alan Wilson, the state attorney general who has prioritized his messaging around affordability, in a runoff later this month, according to The Associated Press.
The second round, on June 23, pits a Trump-backed candidate against a popular attorney general in a state that voted for the president three times in the general election, and was quick to embrace his Make America Great Again movement a decade ago. It will be another high-profile test of Mr. Trump’s political sway, which has had mixed results in races elsewhere in the country.
In South Carolina, voters appeared to be more concerned about who could steer their state and its ballooning population through infrastructure troubles and rising costs. And in interviews, they made a distinction between state and federal leadership. At Ms. Evette’s watch party on Tuesday night, one of the loudest cheers from the audience came after her pledge to fix roads.
As of Tuesday night, her portion of the vote hovered just below 30 percent. Mr. Wilson was not far behind, with about 26 percent. South Carolina has elected only Republican governors since 2002, meaning the winner of the runoff is likely to become governor.