Nancy Mace blames Epstein files backlash as she concedes in South Carolina governor’s race

Pamela Evette in Greer, South Carolina, on Monday. Photograph: Meg Kinnard/AP View image in fullscreen Pamela Evette in Greer, South Carolina, on Monday. Photograph: Meg Kinnard/AP Nancy Mace blames Epstein files backlash as she concedes in South Carolina governor’s race Lieutenant governor and attorney general advance but result signals decisive defeat for controversial Nancy Mace Donald Trump-backed Pamela Evette, South Carolina’s lieutenant governor, and Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general, have advanced to a runoff in a competitive race to represent the Republican party in South Carolina’s gubernatorial election. The winner of the Republican primary is favored to win the closely watched general election, given South Carolina’s conservative tilt, although Democrats are hoping to ride a wave of progressive enthusiasm to make political gains across the ticket. The result signaled a decisive defeat for Nancy Mace, the controversial Republican congresswoman. She attributed her fifth-place loss to her support for releasing the Epstein files, an issue that has continued to dog Trump. “I voted to release the Epstein files and lost some support for that. As a survivor, I chose to stand on principle and stand against the Epstein cover-up. I chose to expose the names hidden in the sexual harassment slush fund. I chose to expose DEI judges. I chose to expose the abusers of children. And apparently, I chose wrong if the goal was winning an election,” she said in a statement posted to X. The Republican gubernatorial nominee in South Carolina will face Jermaine Johnson, the Democratic state representative and a former professional basketball player representing a Columbia-area district, who won broad endorsement from party officials before winning the Democratic primary on Tuesday night. South Carolina changed its election process in 2012 so the governor and lieutenant governor run on the same ticket in a general election. The outgoing governor, Henry McMaster, chose Evette as his running mate in 2018. As an entrepreneur, Evette grew Quality Business Solutions, an HR and accounting software company, into a billion-dollar revenue business before entering politics. She led the contest in fundraising, with a war chest of about $3.5m, including $1m of her own money. Meanwhile, Wilson, who has served as South Carolina’s attorney general since 2011, is a reserve colonel in the national guard’s judge advocate general corps and the adoptive son of long-serving Republican US representative, Joe Wilson. The other two defeated candidates were Ralph Norman and Rom Reddy. Norman, a US representative, is – per GovTrack, a government transparency site – one of the most conservative members of the US House of Representatives, and also one of its wealthiest, after building a fortune as a real estate, trailed Evette and Wilson. Reddy, the child of immigrants and a former ExxonMobil executive, also sought the nomination and entered the governor’s race with $5m of his ow