A new Trafalgar Group tracking poll released Monday shows Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette pulling into a clear plurality lead in the Republican primary for South Carolina governor — and still nowhere near the threshold she needs to avoid a runoff in the SC governor’s race no clear winner.
Evette stands at 26.3 percent in the survey, conducted May 29 through 31 among 900 likely Republican primary voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. The poll was the first public read of the field after President Donald Trump’s May 29 endorsement of Evette and her running mate, Henry McMaster Jr.
The math behind the number matters more than the number itself. To win the nomination outright on June 9, a candidate must clear 50 percent plus one vote. Evette is 23.7 points short of that line. Behind her, four candidates are clustered within the margin of error: businessman Rom Reddy at 17.2 percent, Attorney General Alan Wilson at 16.9 percent, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman at 16.1 percent, and U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace at 14.8 percent. State Sen. Josh Kimbrell sits at 1.9 percent. A seventh name, Jacqueline DuBose, polls at 2.4 percent but is no longer a certified candidate — more on that below.
With seven days to the primary, the race is closer to a five-way scramble for second place than a one-woman coronation.
The SC governor’s race no clear winner, as evidenced by the ongoing competition among candidates.
What the endorsement actually moved
Some Republican operatives speculated before May 29 that a Trump endorsement might swing a single candidate 10 to 15 points overnight. The Trafalgar comparison shows something more modest.
In the same firm’s pre-endorsement survey, conducted May 19 through 22 and released May 26, Evette polled 19.9 percent. Her post-endorsement number of 26.3 percent is a gain of 6.4 points — real, outside the margin of error, but within the historical band for a Trump primary nod and well short of consolidating the field. Wilson lost 2.5 points in the same comparison. Reddy lost 1.8. Norman and Mace were essentially flat. The undecided share moved only from 5.6 percent to 4.4 percent.
Trafalgar’s tracking poll is also the only post-endorsement public survey in the field. No follow-up release from Winthrop University, Cygnal, McLaughlin, or other firms had surfaced by Tuesday.
The Monday debate three candidates showed up for
South Carolina ETV held its own gubernatorial forum in downtown Columbia on Monday night, eight days out from the primary. Kimbrell, Mace, and Norman took the stage. Evette, Wilson, and Reddy did not.
Evette’s campaign said she would instead hold an event in Travelers Rest, the Upstate town where she raised her family and built her business. Wilson sat for a Newsmax interview the day before. Reddy told FITSNews that with Evette skipping, “there is no longer a reason for us to attend,” framing the contest as “a choice between a McMaster dynasty and something different.”
The SCETV event was not one of the three South Carolina Republican Party-sanctioned debates — those wrapped up at Wofford College on May 26. But a three-candidate forum eight days before voters decide is itself a story, and the absence of half the field from the only such event on the calendar gives the three who attended a final unanswered turn at the microphone.
No additional debates are scheduled between now and June 9. A runoff-cycle debate is on the books for June 16 at the Newberry Opera House if the race goes to a second ballot.
Where each candidate stands one week out
Understanding the SC Governor’s Race: No Clear Winner
**Evette** has the endorsement, the McMaster family network, and a $325,000 statewide television buy launched alongside the Trump post. She has not publicly responded to questions about the vetting of her running-mate pick, telling FITSNews on May 31 that she would “worry about all the other things that come after” winning the primary.
**Wilson** told Newsmax on May 31 that Trump’s endorsement of Evette “will not alter his campaign,” arguing primary voters will choose the candidate focused on their families rather than political insiders. He passed on the SCETV forum the next night. Wilson holds the strongest fundraising position in the field. Joe Wilson, the longtime U.S. representative from South Carolina’s 2nd District, is Alan Wilson’s adoptive father. He adopted Alan at age 3 after the death of Alan’s biological father, Army Capt. Michael Alan McCrory, in a military training exercise. Alan has carried the Wilson surname since.
**Mace** drew the sharpest contrast with the endorsement. Hours before Trump’s post, she warned supporters that Evette had no such endorsement; that post aged badly. By Friday evening she had issued a formal statement saying her respect for Trump was “genuine” and “unchanged” but that she would “drain the swamp, not keep the same creatures there.” On Saturday she said she had no regrets about her vote to release the Epstein files.
**Norman** received an early endorsement from former Gov. Nikki Haley, who posted 45 minutes before Trump’s Truth Social message that she and her husband had cast early ballots for Norman. His public posture since has been steady.
**Reddy** has self-funded $5.47 million in his first 60 days, according to South Carolina State Ethics Commission filings carried in earlier reporting. After Trump’s post, he wrote on X that he “never made the trip to Washington” to seek the endorsement because he believed the choice “was between you, the voters of South Carolina, and me.
**Kimbrell** has been the quietest candidate in the field. He took the SCETV debate stage Monday night but has issued no public statement on the endorsement and no fundraising-quarter surprises.
Why analysts say there is no clear winner
Trafalgar’s own write-up of its pre-endorsement survey described the contest as marked by “the lack of a clear frontrunner.” That framing has tightened, but not collapsed, in the week since.
FITSNews publisher Will Folks called the race “a definitional tossup” in his May 25 preview and, in a June 1 follow-up, characterized the post-endorsement field as “Evette versus everyone else.” A national Republican strategist told Folks that “had it simply been Trump’s endorsement of Evette, it probably would have been match, set, game for her” — caveating that the McMaster Jr. running-mate pick complicated the picture.
A senior Republican strategist quoted by the Washington Examiner on June 1 gave the counterpoint: “President Trump’s endorsement is the most important factor in any Republican primary across the country. If you’re on the losing side of that, you’re just taking up oxygen and sailing toward your own demise.
Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon, in his October 2025 Winthrop Poll release, found that roughly 80 percent of GOP voters described a Trump endorsement as “very” or “somewhat” important to their vote. In separate commentary to Newsweek, Huffmon cautioned that national name recognition can matter less than the views of county-level party members — a hedge that cuts both for and against Evette in a fragmented field.
Early voting is breaking records, but not telling us who’s leading
Through the close of week one on Friday, May 29, more than 151,670 South Carolinians had cast early in-person ballots, according to the State Election Commission. That single week already exceeded total early-vote turnout for the entire 2024 primary cycle. Day one alone saw 56,407 ballots — roughly 2.5 times the previous single-day primary record.
SCEC Director Conway Belangia called the early pace “phenomenal.
The party-share of those ballots, per FITSNews reporting, has run roughly 70 percent Democratic to 30 percent Republican through the first week. That split does not project who will win the Republican gubernatorial nomination. South Carolina has open primaries, but a voter can pull only one party’s ballot, and the Republican electorate on June 9 is expected to lean more heavily on Election Day and on the final five days of early voting, which reopened Monday and runs through Friday.
For pollsters, the slower Republican early vote adds modeling uncertainty: who counts as a likely Republican primary voter on June 9 is still partly a guess.
A name on the ballot whose votes will not count
DuBose, a Hartsville Republican, was decertified as a candidate by the South Carolina Republican Party on May 4 after her $4,200 filing-fee check did not clear. Her name remains on printed ballots, which had already been shipped — including overseas ballots to military voters — before the decertification.
Votes for DuBose will not count toward the nomination. The SCGOP and county election offices are working on signage and verbal notification at polling sites. She drew 2.4 percent in the post-endorsement Trafalgar poll — a small but not trivial share, given how tightly the second-place candidates are bunched.
The runoff math
With Evette 23.7 points from a first-round win and four candidates within the margin of error for second, a June 23 runoff is the most likely outcome. Folks’s May 25 framing — that it is “virtually impossible for any candidate to secure a majority on the first ballot” — held even after the endorsement.
Who finishes second is the question Trafalgar’s poll could not answer. Reddy, Wilson, Norman, and Mace are within 2.4 points of each other, well inside the margin of error. Each would bring a different runoff dynamic: Wilson with the fundraising base and statewide name, Norman with the Haley network, Mace with a “drain the swamp” frame aimed straight at the endorsement, and Reddy with self-funded outsider positioning and the smallest existing organization.
What to watch this week
Early voting reopened Monday and closes Friday, June 5. The next post-endorsement poll, if one lands, will say more about whether Evette’s bump is sticking. The U.S. House Armed Services Committee is set to mark up the fiscal 2027 defense bill Thursday — a vote that puts Joe Wilson’s signature back on a major bill five days before voters decide his son’s race.
The primary is Tuesday, June 9. If no candidate clears 50 percent — and on the current numbers, none will — voters will be back at the polls on June 23.
## Further Reading
SC governor’s race no clear winner – Newsweek — “Pamela Evette’s Chances of Winning South Carolina Primary, Poll Shows” (June 1, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – Mediaite — “Nancy Mace Stuck in 5th Place in Governor’s Race After Trump Snubs Her On Endorsement: NEW POLL” (June 1, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – The Hill — “Evette, Wilson in dead heat in crowded South Carolina GOP gubernatorial race: Poll” (May 29, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – Spectrum Local News — “New poll shows tight race in South Carolina GOP governor primary” (May 29, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – Newsmax — “Alan Wilson to Newsmax: Trump Nod Won’t Change S.C. Gov. Race” (May 31, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – The Hill — “Nancy Mace doubles down on Epstein files vote after Donald Trump endorses challenger in SC race” (May 30, 2026)
– Washington Examiner — “Republicans remain in South Carolina primary despite Trump endorsement” (June 1, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – FITSNews — “Crossroads 2026: South Carolina Governor’s Race Enters Homestretch” (May 25, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – FITSNews — “Recalibrating the GOP Governor’s Race After Pamela Evette’s Trump Endorsement” (June 1, 2026)
– FITSNews — “Pamela Evette, Rom Reddy Dodge Another GOP Gubernatorial Debate” (May 31, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – FITSNews — “Early Voting Eruption in South Carolina: Second Week on Tap” (May 31, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – SC Daily Gazette — “Longshot candidate for SC governor disqualified for not paying filing fee” (May 11, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – WIS-TV — “EARLY VOTING TRACKER: Record turnout continues for SC primaries” (June 1, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – Fox Carolina — “SC primary early voting opens strong” (May 27, 2026)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – Winthrop University — “Latest Winthrop Poll Results on the S.C. Gubernatorial Race” (October 2025)
SC governor’s race no clear winner – Roll Call — “NDAA mark unveiled by House Armed Services Committee chairman” (May 27, 2026)
