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Earlier this week, South Carolina lieutenant governor Pamela Evette spoke to the Lexington County Republican Party. Her address combined pro-business rhetoric with maternalistic personal anecdotes – as well as full-throated support for U.S. president Donald Trump‘s MAGA movement.
Evette, the first female Republican lieutenant governor in South Carolina’s history, opened by reflecting on her business background.
“My husband and I started a company in Travelers Rest about twenty-five years ago now… we grew that to a national company,” she said, noting Quality Business Solution’s expansion to provide payroll and HR services across 49 states. “Every day was helping small businesses grow, and making sure that they could navigate through regulations that were just hard to navigate through sometimes.”
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Evette said a frustration with over-regulation and its impact on business productivity drove her to seek public office.
“I said to my husband, David ‘If I ever have the chance to serve, I want to serve because it’s just crazy,’” Evette recalled.
Evette cited Trump as a fellow businessperson whom she admires.
“Donald Trump comes down an elevator, I wasn’t in public office, I had no reason to like him except to say, ‘what a great guy. He’s a business guy, and this is who we need,’” Evette said, drawing applause from the crowd.
Evette has reportedly told numerous acquaintances that she expects to receive Trump’s endorsement should she run for governor in 2026. She stood by Trump’s side at the S.C. State House in Columbia on January 29, 2023 when he kicked off his third presidential campaign.
While one source close to Trump disputed the notion that Evette has already secured an endorsement commitment to FITSNews, they did note, “POTUS knows her and likes her and can trust her.”
Evette joked about the frenetic nature of Trump’s presidencies, eliciting laughter as she described checking the news to see what Trump had done while the nation slept.
“There are mornings I wake up and I’m just a bit nervous and scared because our president never sleeps, and I have no idea what’s happening while I was sleeping, so I like – gingerly turn on Fox News, and I think, what has happened while I’ve been in bed, right?” she said.
Evette then lamented green energy policies and their damage to industry and voters.
“I took a trip to Germany,” she said. “The Green Party took over, took away nuclear, and what started happening, energy became unreliable and unaffordable and rolling blackouts somehow became a badge of honor. So what did all the businesses and industry do in Germany? They left. That was the very first time German GDP ever dropped.”
Evette noted the Palmetto State very nearly experienced rolling blackouts during a recent winter storm.
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“We almost had a rolling blackout here in South Carolina,” Evette said in reference to the Christmas 2022 crisis, which was driven by gas-generation failures due to low temperatures.
“It was Christmas. So everybody had every light on, right?” She said. “It was cold, it was cloudy. There was no solar being kicked in on the grid. And energy use was at its peak because it was cold. So everyone had their furnaces on, and it was only by the grace of God, and with a razor thin margin, that we got through that.”
Evette said the near-disaster spurred her and governor Henry McMaster to pursue legislation to expand power generation in the Palmetto State.
“This year we passed an energy bill, because the first thing we need to do is we need to get rid of regulations,” Evette said.
Evette also discussed her views on doing away with South Carolina’s collection of income taxes, predicating her support on making South Carolina’s government more efficient.
“How many of you want to be living in a zero state income tax state?” Evette asked to great applause.
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“I’ve been talking about it with the governor for an awfully long time, but what we need to do is we need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, right?” she said. “So if we want to get to that, then we’ve got to make sure we’re running government efficiently. We need to leverage technology. We need to leverage AI.”
So far, South Carolina Republicans have proven more adept at talking about income tax elimination than effectuating change. And the plans which have been introduced have fallen well short of that goal.
Former Trump economist Dr. Vance Ginn explained how legislation introduced this year to ostensibly lower the state’s income tax ended up shifting taxes to lower tax brackets instead of meaningfully reducing tax revenue.
“(The bill), as written, would shift burdens without reducing them for most,” Ginn told FITSNews in April of this year.
On the contentious issue of lawsuit reform – which dominated debate at the S.C. State House this year – Evette noted her pleasure with the passage of new liquor liability legislation, but made clear she supports the passage of more robust tort reform bills in 2026.
“I was told tort reform would never even be talked about in the State House,” Evette said. “But it was passed.”
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“Was the bill exactly where I wanted it to be?” she continued. “No, but I was so encouraged when we had our ceremonial bill signing on that bill. Everybody: business, House, Senate said this was just the beginning and that they knew there was more work that needed to be done. So I’m encouraged that work will continue next year.”
Evette’s address was filled with anecdotes about her children and parents. She spoke at length about her son’s attendance of a South Carolina technical college, emphasizing her belief in the program both as a businesswoman and a mother.
While her business background bleeds through in the way she approaches political issues, Evette’s folksy midwestern authenticity supersedes the boilerplate, platitudinous inauthenticity displayed by many corporate veterans schooled in the art of speaking a lot while saying very little.
Evette does have to contend with one factor beyond her control in the event that she announces a gubernatorial bid – being from Ohio.
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Whether it’s Interstate 77’s facilitation of the mass migration of large numbers of Ohioans to the Palmetto State or some other less quantifiable factor, many South Carolinians seem to harbor a disproportionate dislike for residents of the Buckeye State, something that has been documented in a number of (admittedly dubiously sourced) surveys.
Can Evette’s charm offensive supersede this prejudice? Only time will tell, but the warm reception she received from the Lexington county GOP bodes well for any potential gubernatorial bid.
Count on FITSNews to continue tracking the Palmetto State’s top 2026 gubernatorial prospects as next spring’s field coalesces…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
(Via: Travis Bell)
Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.
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1 comment
Pammy will be reaping all that Joo-PAC money to help her campaign. Sounds like she is pimping herself out to any group that will have her.