Crossroads 2026: The Money Battle

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by WILL FOLKS

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South Carolina’s four major gubernatorial candidates worked incredibly hard to raise funds for their campaigns over the past three months. Now they’re working every bit as hard to spin the numbers associated with those contributions… hoping to convince voters they have the momentum in the race to become the Palmetto State’s next chief executive.

Last Friday (October 10, 2025) marked the deadline for candidates to submit their third quarter fundraising totals to the S.C. State Ethics Commission (SCSEC), the agency which oversees campaign finance reporting in the Palmetto State. The third quarter covers contributions each campaign received between July 1, 2025 and September 30, 2025.

So… who is winning the 2026 money race?

That depends whom you ask – and which metric you are considering.

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The Republican gubernatorial primary features four main contenders at this point: first district congresswoman Nancy Mace, four-term attorney general Alan Wilson, lieutenant governor Pamela Evette and fifth district congressman Ralph Norman.

Each candidate boasted an impressive haul during the third quarter – although there are big differences in how they arrived at their totals, how much money they spent and how much money they have in the bank as the campaign heats up.

We’ll start with Mace, who reported raising $1.1 million during her first two months as a candidate. After spending just over $350,000, Mace has a total of roughly $720,000 in the bank as of October 1, 2025.

Reporter Nick Reynolds of The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier slammed Mace’s haul, noting that only eight percent of her donors were from South Carolina – by far the lowest percentage of any candidate.

Mace pushed back at Reynolds’ criticism, saying she received 1,590 contributions from Palmetto State residents – which was more than the 1,219 total South Carolina contributions received by Wilson, Evette and Norman (combined).

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“Since you can’t help but prove your left-wing bias and can’t add let me do the math for you,” Mace wrote to the reporter on X. “Eight percent of 20,000 donations is more than triple the donors from South Carolina as all of my opponents. My total number of donations from South Carolina is more than ALL MY OPPONENT COMBINED AND THEN SOME (emphasis original).”

Mace added that her campaign had twelve times the number of donations as all of her opponents (combined) and seven-and-a-half times as many individual donors as all of her opponents (combined).

“How do you like those apples?” she asked Reynolds.

Wilson reported raised an impressive $1.3 million – including approximately $260,000 in transfers from his attorney general’s account (roughly 22% of his total). After spending just over $214,000, Wilson had nearly $1.1 million in the bank as of October 1, 2025.

The big spender of the cycle? Evette.

As we previously reported, the little-known No. 2 to S.C. governor Henry McMaster launched a major advertising push over the past six weeks in an attempt to boost her profile in the race. The spending binge seems to have worked, too… but there was a significant cost associated with that effort.

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RELATED | EVETTE’S CAMPAIGN GOES NUCLEAR

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Evette spent a whopping $888,000 during the recent quarter – more than Mace, Wilson and Norman combined. After raising roughly $1 million (and loaning her candidacy $300,000), Evette had $528,000 on hand as of October 1, 2025 – the lowest total of the four major contenders.

Campaigns generally devote the months prior to an election year raising (and saving) as much money as possible… and then spending that money in the months leading up to the partisan primary elections in early June.

Can Evette sustain such a high “burn rate” over the coming quarters? And if not, will she dip further into her personal wealth to finance her political aspirations?

Norman, an independently wealthy developer, also loaned his campaign money – $500,000, to be precise. Along with the $808,000 he collected from donors, the Freedom Caucus firebrand raised more than $1.3 million during the third quarter – matching Wilson for the biggest haul of any contender.

The best news for Norman? He spent just $187,000 – the lowest of any contender. That left him with $1.1 million in the bank, also matching Wilson for the highest total of any candidate.

Like Evette, Norman has the potential to self-fund his candidacy – although it remains to be seen whether the notoriously frugal businessman will spend any of the money he has loaned his campaign (or if he will commit additional resources to the effort should such an investment prove necessary).

An important note to consider: These filings represent only finances linked to the official campaign organizations of each candidate. There are multiple political action committees spending even bigger bucks in support of – or opposition to – their candidacies.

That money is much harder to track…

Filing for next spring’s partisan primary elections opens in March, with the primaries themselves scheduled for June 9, 2026. In the event no candidate wins a majority of votes on the first ballot, a runoff election would be held two weeks later (on June 23, 2026). The GOP primary is the race to watch in South Carolina, as Democrats haven’t won a gubernatorial election since 1998 – and haven’t won a statewide election since 2006. That means the GOP nominee in this race is all but assured of prevailing in the general election next November.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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