Ted Cruz

CHARLESTON — So why is U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of faraway Texas endorsing in the South Carolina Republican runoff for governor?

The veteran politician threw his support to Attorney General Alan Wilson over Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette last weekend.

But the nod may be more about his 2028 presidential ambitions than the current S.C. governor’s duel.

Some see it as foreshadowing Cruz’s White House desires with a show of independence out from the shadow of President Donald Trump (who is backing Evette) while at the same time opening a path back into Palmetto State turf.

The news site Axios recently looked at Cruz’s endorsements, including in the heated Georgia governor’s race, saying the Texas lawmaker “appears to be the only potential 2028 GOP contender to publicly side against Trump in either race, underscoring how reluctant other ambitious Republicans are to cross the president.”

But there was also this: The play carries an element of risk, meaning that if Cruz makes a bad bet, Trump’s wrath could come out.

In his endorsement pronouncement, Cruz called Wilson “a proven conservative fighter” whose career has featured “protecting families, reining in government overreach, and standing up to the radical policies of the Left.”

Cruz previously ran for president in 2016, finishing third behind Trump and then-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary vote that year.

South Carolina traditional holds the first GOP presidential primary in the ruby red South.

Elsewhere on the trail

An independent poll of the runoff for governor shows Wilson with a significant lead over Evette, who despite Trump’s endorsement had high unfavorable numbers in the poll entering the final week of the campaign.

The pollster, Baton Rouge-based JMC Analytics, found Wilson currently leads Evette by a more than two-to-one margin among likely voters in the runoff, with just 15 percent of voters undecided as of June 15.

The poll also shows Evette’s favorability at -9 points, which comes against the backdrop of a negative ad blitz against Wilson alongside consistent attacks from her five Republican rivals in the race on the campaign trail.

"I kind of wonder if what's going on is that perhaps the race has gotten so ugly that it is rebounded against her," John Couvillon, the pollster, said of Evette in an interview with The Post and Courier. "She's getting the blowback from people thinking she's running a negative campaign."

The poll utilized a mix of direct-to-text and telephone interviews and surveyed 500 likely Republican voters in the upcoming runoff with a margin of error of 4.38 percent.

Couvillon said he was not paid by any campaign or political action committee. He previously has made accurate polling calls that included the 2021 Virginia governor’s race (he correctly pegged Republican Glenn Youngkin as the winner) as well as a recent poll predicting the unlikely upset of Trump-endorsed candidate Randy Feenstra in the Iowa Republican primary for governor.

Washington Post says polling is spooking the White House: Trump is weighing a double endorsement of Wilson alongside Evette in order to hedge his picked winner bets, the Post reported one anonymous White House insider as saying. According to the Post, internal polling in the race from both sides shows Wilson with an advantage over Evette, though one insider maintained the race remains a toss-up.

McMaster Jr. out for good

One drag on Evette has been a lingering rumor that she still planned to choose the son of Gov. Henry McMaster as her running mate after the runoff had ended, despite his son already saying publicly he did no plan to join the ticket.

Evette’s team addressed the rumor publicly June 16.

“This is (100 percent) fake news,” her campaign wrote on social media. “Henry D. McMaster Jr. is not her pick and will not be her pick for lieutenant governor.”

Honeycutt vs Smith debate

The two Republicans running to succeed U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace in the coastal 1st Congressional District will face their biggest audience of the season tonight when they debate live in a televised showdown beginning at 7 p.m.

Charleston County Council member Jenny Costa Honeycutt of James Island and state Rep. Mark Smith of Daniel Island will answer media questions for an hour ahead of their June 23 runoff.

Honeycutt led in the first round of voting June 9 with 22 percent of the turnout in the 11-candidate field.

Smith finished second with an 18 percent following.

The difference was about 2,800 votes out of the 67,000 total cast.

The debate is a partnership presentation hosted by the S.C. Republican Party and Gray Media, which owns multiple media outlets in the state.

The in-studio debate is viewable on Live 5 WCSC in Charleston and WTOC 11 out of Savannah.

1st District Democrats

Speaking of debates, there won’t be a debate between the two Democrats seeking their party’s nomination.

First-place primary finisher Nancy Lacore last week declined a TV invitation to debate second-place finisher Mac Deford.

Lacore drew 36 percent of the Democratic turnout on June 9 while Deford trailed with 29 percent, a difference of about 4,300 votes out of 56,600 cast.

Endorsements

First Congressional District Republican candidate Smith endorsed Wilson for governor.

“He's a steady, proven, competent leader for the governor's office,” Smith said.