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by MARK POWELL
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Our neighbors a few states to the north still love quoting a 1902 poem that concludes with the lines “the landscape is the grandest, and politics the damndest, in Kentucky.”
Things can indeed get savage in the Bluegrass State (as we saw earlier this month), but when it comes to the “damndest” part of that poem – South Carolinians can enthusiastically tell Kentuckians to hold their beers.
Especially in 2026…
With just fifteen (15) days to go before the June 9, 2026 statewide primary, everything in the Palmetto State is a delightful mess. The GOP governor’s race remains a definitional tossup with four frontrunners statistically tied at the top of the polls. After five full months of aggressive stumping around the state, two debates, and too many campaign commercials to count – things remain essentially tied.
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The one unexpected wrinkle has been businessman Rom Reddy’s late entry into the race. While most recent polling shows Reddy hasn’t yet broken into the top tier, his deep personal pockets have put him within striking distance of the top four candidates – attorney general Alan Wilson, fifth district congressman Ralph Norman, lieutenant governor Pamela Evette and first district congresswoman Nancy Mace.
Through his first sixty (60) days as a candidate, Reddy has spent a staggering $5.47 million according to a pre-election disclosure report filed this week with the S.C. State Ethics Commission (SCSEC).
Despite this massive cash outlay, a pair of recent polls had Reddy stuck at 11% – behind Wilson, Evette, Norman and Mace.
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Meanwhile, state senator Josh Kimbrell remains mired at the back of the pack. In fact, Kimbrell is polling so low the SCGOP declined to invite him to its third and final primary debate – scheduled for this Tuesday evening (May 26, 2026) at 7:00 p.m. EDT at Wofford College.
For his part, Kimbrell has brushed off the snub. He claims his presence is required at the S.C. State House as lawmakers continue debating a proposed realignment of the Palmetto State’s congressional borders dictated by U.S. president Donald Trump.
“As I’ve said in the last two governor debates, I’m still actively leading in the State Senate,” Kimbrell said. “While I planned to attend Tuesday’s GOP debate at Wofford, I’ll instead be in special session helping President Trump fight to deliver all seven congressional seats for Republicans.”
Will the S.C. General Assembly approve the controversial White House-drawn maps? And, if so, will their politically redrawn borders hold up in court? At this point, it’s anybody’s guess…
Oh, and remember… all of this political insanity is unfolding at the precise moment early voting kicks off across the state on Tuesday morning.
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Like the first debate in early April, Evette has declined to participate in Tuesday evening’s forum – opting instead to attend a get-out-the-vote rally in North Myrtle Beach to promote early voting. Evette and Reddy both skipped the first debate in Newberry – apparently without doing any lasting damage to their candidacies. The timing of Evette’s latest debate dodge raises some very interesting questions, though (more on that in a moment).
As we enter the pivotal final two weeks of the race, each campaign faces the same dilemma: how to break through the noise and sway what all polls concur is a surprisingly large chunk of still-undecided voters.
The window for a breakout moment is still open – but it’s about to slam shut. In short, the now-or-never moment has arrived – meaning we should expect a vastly different tone on the debate stage in Spartanburg this week.
The two prior debates were not just civil… they were downright cordial. Consider the second debate in Charleston, S.C., in which Mace thanked her opponents (well, two of them) for reaching out to her after her father’s passing. Mace also joked, good-naturedly, that her rival Norman would make an excellent roads czar in her administration (an assessment Norman enthusiastically seconded).
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But that was then… this is now. In the intervening weeks, the gloves have come off. Reddy has blasted Norman as a career politician, Norman has blasted Wilson’s record as attorney general, Wilson has gone after Evette for repeatedly implying she has Trump’s support, Evette has attacked Mace for carping about the Trump administration while Mace has – at one time or another – attacked pretty much everybody.
The prevailing acrimony is expected to finally spill over onto the debate stage as Wilson, Norman, Mace and Reddy appear before voters one last time.
“The accusations will be flying so fast and furious, it’ll be hard to follow who is attacking whom for what,” a longtime South Carolina election observer quipped.
That’s likely not far from the truth. After all, the candidates are chasing two tantalizing, glittering gems which hang over the Republican field like gleaming stars – the first being a gigantic pool of still-undecided voters (believed to be between 25-30% of the primary electorate) and the second being Trump’s yet-to-be-delivered endorsement.
Conventional wisdom says the latter could be the key to securing the former – although despite persistent rumors of backroom deals, Trump has yet to weigh in on the Palmetto gubernatorial primary (which is curious considering he has previously endorsed in one South Carolina down ballot race and “un-dorsed” in another).
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As this news outlet has previously noted, anointing one candidate over the others would come at enormous risk for Trump. With the Republican majority precariously thin in the U.S. House of Representatives, the White House simply cannot afford GOP defections in upcoming crucial votes – especially the budget reconciliation bill that’s stuffed with immigration enforcement, border security funding, and other administration priorities.
As we’ve repeatedly pointed out, the GOP field includes two sitting House members and the son of a third. Hell hath no fury like a politician scorned, and being passed over for an endorsement could carry consequences for the president all the way to next January – especially if Evette is his choice (which has the potential to alienate three GOP votes he desperately needs).
On the other side of the equation is governor Henry McMaster – who has anointed Evette as his successor. McMaster was the first elected statewide official to endorse Trump during his first presidential run in 2016, and Evette’s campaign is clearly hoping the president will return the favor and back her candidacy. In fact, it has played fast and loose with the facts for months, insinuating (while stopping just short of actually saying) that Trump is on her side.
Which begs the question: do McMaster and Evette know something the rest of us don’t? And could that be the real reason for Evette ducking out of Tuesday night’s debate?
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RELATED | PALMETTO MAP DRAMA
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Here’s another point to ponder: so far in the 2026 cycle, Trump’s endorsements have been announced increasingly late in the process; later, in fact, than he has ever previously made them. Studies found that in 2018, only about 31% of his endorsements came before a primary. In 2020, that total rose to 58%. By 2022, a whopping 84% of Trump endorsements came an average of 106 days before primary voting.
This cycle, though, Trump has been known to wait almost until primary eve. Consider Texas, where last Tuesday he announced his backing of Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate GOP primary runoff election. A few days before that, he let it be known in neighboring Louisiana that he was backing congresswoman Julia Letlow – whose first-place finish in that primary helped prevent incumbent senator Bill Cassidy from even making it to the runoff.
Which brings us back to Evette’s rally in North Myrtle Beach on Tuesday. Could it be she plans to announce a big surprise at this event?
While we are two weeks away from a decisive election day, June 9 won’t be the only day of reckoning for Republican contenders next month. With so many candidates vying for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, it will be virtually impossible for any candidate to secure a majority of votes on the first ballot. That means the top two vote-getters will advance to a head-to-head runoff election two weeks later (on June 23, 2026).
And we get to do all of this over again…
The damndest politics, indeed. Try that on for size, Kentucky!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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