President Donald Trump endorsed both finalists in South Carolina's GOP gubernatorial runoff on Friday, a move that guarantees he will be on the winning side Tuesday but raises fresh questions about the weight of his endorsement in a midterm cycle where Republican voters have shown a willingness to go their own way.
The dual endorsement, posted on Truth Social, names both Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Trump's original pick, and Attorney General Alan Wilson, who has surged ahead of Evette in early runoff polling. Just the News reported the move comes days after Trump's preferred candidate in the Georgia governor's race, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, lost to Rick Jackson in that state's GOP primary.
The pattern is hard to miss. When the political ground shifted beneath him in the Palmetto State, Trump moved to cover both flanks rather than risk a second consecutive gubernatorial embarrassment.
South Carolina's open governor's seat drew a packed Republican field. On June 9, no candidate cleared 50 percent, sending the top two finishers, Evette with roughly 28 percent and Wilson with about 26 percent, into a runoff. Millionaire businessman Rom Reddy, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, and U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace were among those who fell short.
Norman and Mace have both since endorsed Wilson.
A JMC Analytics and Polling survey conducted June 13, 15 painted a picture that should worry the Evette camp. Among respondents, 55 percent remained undecided. Of those who had chosen, 28 percent backed Wilson and just 17 percent picked Evette. When pollsters pushed undecided voters to choose, Wilson's lead ballooned: 63 percent to 28 percent, well outside the poll's 4.38-percent margin of error.
Those numbers suggest Wilson has consolidated the non-Evette vote, exactly the kind of consolidation that tends to decide runoffs. Two sitting members of Congress throwing their support behind the attorney general only reinforces that trajectory.
Trump's Friday post praised both candidates without drawing a meaningful distinction between them. He wrote that Evette and Wilson "have had amazing careers, and have been with me from the beginning," adding, "They are MAGA and America First all the way!" He concluded: "With either one you can't go wrong."
That language is a long way from the muscular, one-candidate-only endorsements Trump has used to reshape primaries across the country. It reads less like a political directive and more like an insurance policy.
The contrast with Trump's approach in the Texas Senate runoff is instructive. There, Trump endorsed Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn at the last minute, a single, decisive move. Paxton won by a 2-to-1 margin. That endorsement carried force because it was unambiguous.
Endorsing both candidates in a two-person runoff is, by definition, ambiguous.
The Georgia result looms large over this decision. Just last week, Jones, Trump's man in the Georgia governor's race, lost to Jackson in the GOP primary. That defeat marked a visible crack in the assumption that a Trump endorsement settles intra-party contests.
Republican voters in Georgia decided they had a better option, Trump's backing notwithstanding. South Carolina polling suggests something similar may be unfolding. Wilson is gaining ground, and the consolidation of support from Norman and Mace signals that much of the Republican establishment in the state has lined up behind the attorney general.
The broader political environment may also be a factor. Trump's approval rating sits at approximately 37 percent, and 65 percent of voters have expressed dissatisfaction with his handling of the Iran conflict, figures reported by the Daily News on June 19. Those headwinds have darkened the GOP's midterm outlook and may be eroding the president's ability to dictate outcomes in down-ballot races.
Trump has hedged before. In the 2024 Arizona House primary, he endorsed both Abe Hamadeh and Blake Masters. Hamadeh won. In Missouri's Senate primary, Trump endorsed "Eric", a reference that conveniently applied to both Eric Schmitt and Eric Greitens. Schmitt won that race.
In each case, Trump could claim credit for the winner without absorbing the loss. It is a tactic that preserves a win-loss record on paper while diluting the endorsement's value in practice. Voters and candidates notice the difference between a president who picks a side and one who picks both sides.
South Carolina Republicans, in particular, have reason to pay attention to the gap between Trump's preferences and their own. Earlier this year, five South Carolina GOP state senators broke with the president to block a redistricting plan he had championed, one that would have eliminated the state's sole Democratic-leaning congressional district after a Supreme Court ruling cleared the way. Trump had been a strong proponent of that effort and later launched successful primaries against Indiana lawmakers who rejected a similar push. But in South Carolina, the state legislature shut it down anyway.
That episode revealed a state party willing to exercise independent judgment, even at the risk of presidential displeasure.
The runoff will test whether Wilson's polling lead holds. If it does, Trump will have backed the winner, technically. But the political class will read the result for what it is: a candidate who gained momentum on his own merits, with Trump scrambling to get on the right side of the ledger after his original pick faltered.
If Evette somehow rallies, Trump can claim his original endorsement carried the day. Either way, the president avoids a clean loss.
The deeper question is whether this kind of maneuvering costs Trump something harder to measure than a win-loss column. Endorsements derive their power from risk. A president who bets on one candidate signals confidence, judgment, and willingness to spend political capital. A president who bets on both signals caution.
The fractures within the Republican coalition over Iran policy and other flashpoints have already tested the president's grip on the party. A string of gubernatorial losses, or near-losses papered over with dual endorsements, would test it further.
Meanwhile, Democrats have their own problems, and a competitive GOP primary in South Carolina is hardly a crisis. Both Evette and Wilson are credible conservatives who have pledged loyalty to the president's agenda. The eventual nominee will be well-positioned for the general election in a deep-red state.
But primaries are where a party defines itself. And the signal from South Carolina, like the signal from Georgia, is that Republican voters are making up their own minds, with or without permission from the top.
An endorsement that covers every outcome doesn't really endorse anything at all.