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by WILL FOLKS
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Another new poll has South Carolina attorney general Alan Wilson opening up a significant lead over lieutenant governor Pamela Evette in their head-to-head runoff battle for the Palmetto State’s Republican gubernatorial nomination this month.
Wilson leads Evette by a 52% to 36% margin among likely Republican runoff voters – with 13% of respondents remaining undecided, according to a new survey conducted by NPA Polling for Wilson’s campaign.
Among Wilson’s supporters, 38% indicated they were “definitely” voting for him compared to 14% who said they were probably going to vote for him. Evette’s supporters included 23% who were definitely voting for her and 12% who said they were probably going to do so.
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Wilson’s expanding edge comes despite Evette launching a barrage of negative ads against the Palmetto State’s top prosecutor – accusing him of giving himself a pay raise and rewarding his political cronies.
According to a memo (.pdf) prepared by NPA founding partner Justin Clark, the key to Wilson’s lead over Evette has been his apparent consolidation of the votes received last Tuesday by third-place finisher Ralph Norman, fourth-place finisher Rom Reddy and fifth-place finisher Nancy Mace.
Mace, South Carolina’s first district congresswoman, has already endorsed Wilson’s candidacy. Meanwhile, Norman – the Palmetto State’s fifth district congressman and a founding member of the Freedom Caucus – is making an endorsement announcement this week (news of which was first reported by FITSNews).
Several prominent S.C. Freedom Caucus members have already endorsed Wilson.
“The reason for Wilson’s lead is clear,” Clark wrote. “As the field narrowed following the primary, Republican voters who supported eliminated candidates have overwhelmingly moved toward Wilson rather than Evette. Nearly seven in ten Ralph Norman supporters have coalesced in some way behind Wilson, while a majority of Reddy voters and nearly half of Nancy Mace’s supporters have done the same.”
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Clark’s memo went on to note that Wilson had “successfully united the anti-Evette vote into a larger coalition, while Evette has largely remained confined to her original base.”
In an interview with FITSNews, Clark said he wasn’t surprised to see the field coalescing behind Wilson.
“For a Ralph Norman voter or a Rom Reddy voter, Alan Wilson is the clear second choice,” Clark told us.
NPA’s survey is the second runoff poll showing Wilson with an outside-the-margins advantage over Evette, who narrowly edged the attorney general in the first round of voting. Last week, we reported on the results of an Opinion Diagnostics poll which showed Wilson backed by 46.2% of likely GOP runoff voters compared to 38.5% for Evette.
That spread came despite respondents being reminded of Evette having received the endorsement of U.S. president Donald Trump.
NPA surveyed 600 likely GOP runoff voters between June 10-11, 2026 using a mix of live calls to cell phones and landlines and text-to-web invites. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4%.
Wilson and Evette face off tomorrow evening at 7:00 p.m. EDT on the campus of Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C. – their lone debate of the runoff. Early voting is set to start the following day – running from June 17-18 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EDT. The runoff election is set for next Tuesday (June 23, 2026), with the winner facing Democrat Jermaine Johnson in the general election in November.
For the past three decades, the GOP nomination has been decisive – with no Democrat winning a top-of-the-ticket race in South Carolina since 1998.
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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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