June 8, 2026, 3:01 a.m. ET
In May, an unusual argument broke out between Republican contenders for their party’s gubernatorial nomination in South Carolina: Rep. Nancy Mace confidently declared online two weeks before the June 9 primary that President Donald Trump had not endorsed her chief rival.
Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, she said, was misrepresenting her ties to the president.
“Do not believe her lies,” Mace, a three-term congressman, said in a May 29 post on X, which was accompanied by an AI-generated picture of Mace standing next to the president with both giving a thumbs up.
But hours later Trump did publicly endorsed Evette, describing her as a “good friend, fighter and winner” who had “never wavered” since his first presidential campaign in 2016. The whiplash, which drew mockery of Mace from some Republicans, highlighted that the congresswoman isn’t as tight with the president as her campaign would like voters to believe.
“Mace was thinking that Trump was going to stay out of it,” Republican activist Rick Beltram, a longtime figure in South Carolina politics, told USA TODAY.
“Clearly when you say something like that, and two minutes later it’s a different outcome, it does make you look a little silly,” he added. “She missed the mark.”
Trump’s support is the most coveted prize in Republican primaries nationwide in 2026, which he’s demonstrated by waging an aggressive campaign against multiple incumbents who’ve crossed him whether in Congress or state legislatures.
And his influence is felt in South Carolina, a staunchly conservative state where the party’s nomination almost ensures a win in the general election and GOP primaries have a long history of being nasty competitions.
Mace is a conservative who in 2025 called herself “Trump in high heels,” but she and the president have had their differences.
Mace’s most recent transgression came last year when she was among four House Republicans – along with Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia – who joined Democrats to compel the U.S. Justice Department to release its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I know I put the likelihood of an endorsement on the line when I demanded transparency on the Epstein files,” Mace said in another May 29 post. “If sacrificing my values is the price of an endorsement, I will never pay it.”
‘This is Trump country’: Polling shows Evette breaking away
The field to succeed Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term limited, attracted a notable group that includes Mace and Evette, but also state Attorney General Alan Wilson, Rep. Ralph Norman and business executive Ron Reddy.
For much of the campaign’s final two-month stretch, polls have shown the contenders within striking distance of each other.
But Evette believes Trump’s backing will prove decisive in a state he won by roughly 18 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election.
“This is Trump country, and people feel that the president is doing a great job,” Evette told USA TODAY in a June 5 interview. “It plays a key role in distinguishing candidates, and I think what this shows is the character of the candidates. People want to see loyalty, they want to see fighters and they want to see people who are like-minded.”
Trump’s approval rating has remained steady in South Carolina, with the president holding a 50% approval versus a 47% disapproval rating, according to Morning Consult. But as other primaries across the country have demonstrated this year, among the GOP base he remains far more popular.
Evette has seen a noticeable boost in polling since the May 29 endorsement, which appears to have distinguished her from the rest of the herd.
A poll by the Trafalgar Group, an Atlanta-based Republican firm, conducted a week before Trump got involved in the race found Evette with a slight lead at 19.9%. She was followed by Wilson at 19.4%; Reddy at 19%; Norman at 15.9% and Mace at 14.6% in the survey that had a roughly three percent margin of error.
But in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s nod, those figures shifted dramatically in the lieutenant governor’s favor, the same pollster found. In a survey conducted June 2-4, Evette was holding a 26.3% lead while none of her competitors raked in more than 18%.
That is critical, South Carolina conservatives say, in a crowded race where there is a high likelihood for a June 23 runoff if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. Each of the contenders have showcased their relationship with the president in their pitch to voters.
Wilson, for instance, has a “Trump Tough” page on his campaign website dedicated solely to his relationship with the president. It spotlights his defense of Trump’s executive orders in court and support for cabinet appointees such as FBI Director Kash Patel.
“Our mailboxes have absolutely been flooded by mail pieces from all the candidates, and they all are showing pictures with them standing next to Donald Trump,” Beltram told USA TODAY.
Mace’s hot and cold Trump relationship could determine fate of the ‘Iron Lady’
Republicans who’ve publicly disagreed with the president’s agenda or approach to politics have paid the price ahead of the 2026 midterms.
From Indiana to Louisiana, many longtime incumbents have been easily booted from office while others have been hounded out of Washington by Trump’s scathing online tongue lashings. In some regards, Mace is no different given her previous criticisms of the president.
Three days after first assuming office, for example, as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack, she issued a blistering response while locked in her office. The congresswoman called the attempted insurrection “un-American” and slammed Trump’s rhetoric ahead of the incident.
“His entire legacy was wiped out yesterday,” Mace said at the time.
The president responded by calling her a “grandstanding loser” and later endorsed a former state legislator who ran against Mace in the 2022 Republican primary.
“Nancy fights Republicans all the time and is not at all nice about it,” Trump said at the time. “Frankly, she is despised by almost everyone, and who needs that in Congress, or in the Republican Party?”
She easily won that reelection bid by 14 percentage points, however.
In the years since, Mace made a noticeable rightward shift toward Trump, saying there was no ill-will as he waged a comeback campaign against former President Joe Biden two years ago. She endorsed him during the 2024 Republican primary for president over Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, who backed her during the feud with Trump.
Mace in turn was supported in her 2024 reelection bid and spoke at the Republican National Convention that year after being floated as a possible running mate. But in the aftermath of Trump’s choice to support her gubernatorial rival, the congresswoman has been on a tear online.
In a May 31 post on X, she declared herself the “Iron Lady”, a nickname given to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, featuring an AI-generated picture sporting the foreign leader’s famous hairstyle. The bio on that social media account also now mentions that Trump endorsed her in 2024 for Congress.
Asked how she would handle disagreements with the president, Evette, who was an entrepreneur before entering politics, said he appreciates consistency when it comes to allies, whether in Washington or the state level. The lieutenant governor said she can’t speak to how Trump views his relationship with the congresswoman now, but that she would handle disagreements with him differently.
“The president and I are both business people, we’re not career politicians, so when business people disagree, they don’t take to social media, they don’t take to the news media,” Evette said. “They call each other and have a conversation. If there was a topic that the president and I maybe wouldn’t see eye to eye on, that is exactly the way I would handle it.”
The Mace campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this story, but supporters who spoke with USA TODAY noted she has remains a popular figure among grassroots conservatives in the state.
Marty Irby, president and CEO of Capitol South LLC, a conservative-leaning lobbying firm in Washington, DC, noted she has won against Trump-backed candidates before.
“She doesn’t need Donald Trump, she doesn’t really need endorsements,” he added. “She is a fearless woman. She’s the most fearless member of the House — period — and has more guts than most of the men in this entire town and entire Congress and in the administration.”
The polls, however, suggest otherwise.
