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Crossroads 2026SC Politics

Crossroads 2026: Pamela Evette On The Move

South Carolina’s lieutenant governor gains ground in crowded GOP gubernatorial primary, new survey suggests…

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by WILL FOLKS

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South Carolina lieutenant governor Pamela Evette‘s massive early investment in advertising for her 2026 gubernatorial campaign is paying dividends, according to the results of a new poll of Palmetto State Republican primary voters obtained exclusively by FITSNews.

Long mired in single digits, Evette has stormed to the head of the pack in what has previously been regarded as a two-person race – if the results of a new survey from Co/efficient are to be believed.

According to the poll (.pdf), Evette trails frontrunner Nancy Mace – whom she has pilloried in her ads – by just one percentage point and has actually edged ahead of S.C. attorney general Alan Wilson.

Mace drew 19% support, Evette drew 18% support and Wilson drew 16% support among likely GOP voters, per the survey. Fifth district congressman Ralph Norman was in fourth place with 10%, while scandal-scarred state senator Josh Kimbrell was a distant fifth at just two percent support.

More than a third of the GOP electorate – 35% – remained undecided, according to the survey.

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Evette’s standing is easily her best performance on a Palmetto State poll – barring one outlier. Surveys taken prior to her recent advertising blitz showed her languishing in mid-single digits – narrowly trailing Norman but nowhere near Mace and Wilson.

“Evette has logged the largest gain in the field—from mid-single digits in public polling to 18% today,” Co/efficient’s lead pollster Ryan Munce noted.

In other words, the massive cash outlay her campaign unleashed in an effort to boost her visibility – and blunt Mace’s recent momentum – appears to have temporarily done the trick.

There are also indicators within the data which could prove even more favorable to the Ohio native – who has served as No. 2 to South Carolina’s status quo governor Henry McMaster since 2019.

“Evette’s strength is concentrated among older conservatives and high-propensity GOP primary voters, a turnout bloc that typically dominates South Carolina primaries,” Munce observed. “The trajectory favors Evette if she continues her climb among high-propensity conservatives.”

While Evette is on the move in this survey, her rivals’ positioning is unchanged from previous public polls.

“Mace is essentially flat,” he noted, while “Wilson is nearly unchanged.”

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RELATED | PAMELA EVETTE UNLOADS ON NANCY MACE

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The Co/efficient survey determined Mace was “widely known,” but suggested she had “higher negatives across the board and is most popular among less informed and less frequent primary voters.”

In other words, Mace’s support is not as likely to turn out as Evette’s per this snapshot.

Digging deeper into those favorability numbers, 36% of GOP primary voters reported having a favorable impression of Mace compared to 26% who had an unfavorable impression, according to the poll. As for Evette, 29% viewed her favorably compared to 6% who had an unfavorable view – while 34% viewed Wilson favorably compared to 10% who viewed him unfavorably. Norman had 27% favorability and 8% unfavorables.

Co/efficient surveyed 1,094 likely GOP primary voters in South Carolina on September 18-19, 2025 using “mobile text responses and landline interviews.” The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.17%.

Bottom line? As was the case before these results were logged, the 2026 governor’s race in South Carolina remains a wide open affair – one in which each of the top four candidates has a clear path to victory (yet one in which voters remain unsure of the slate and open to alternatives).

Filing for next spring’s partisan primary elections opens in March, with the primary itself scheduled for June 9, 2026. In the event no candidate wins a majority of votes in the primary, a runoff election would be held two weeks later (on June 23, 2026). As noted, the GOP primary is the race to watch in South Carolina. As we often note, Democrats haven’t won a gubernatorial race since 1998 – and haven’t won a statewide election since 2006. That means whomever captures the Republican nomination is all but assured of prevailing in the general election next November.

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THE POLL…

(Provided)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

Will Folks on phone
Will Folks (Brett Flashnick)

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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5 comments

No! September 21, 2025 at 10:24 am

No, No, No, No, NO! Look what a disaster our last female Governor was. We do not need to repeat that mistake and Mace and Evette seem to be psychologically primed to do just that. Women politicians take self-love to levels the men never imagined; and the men are pretty bad.

Not a fan of Wilson’s prosecutorial background and beliefs that laws should be written so the prosecution never loses, but at this point he seems the best choice available.

Reply
Goody3 Top fan September 21, 2025 at 1:31 pm

Certainly both Mr. Wilson and Ms. Mace have much longer (and more colorful) political histories – which open the doors to more criticism from all perspectives. In other words, bigger targets. Unless things change A LOT, Ms. Yvette’s best hope is that they squeeze each other out, clearing a potential path for her to the GOv’s Mansion.

BUT – it’s early days …….

Reply
Bill Sandifer’s Bullwhip Top fan September 21, 2025 at 9:46 pm

This person is from SC?

Reply
SubZeroIQ September 22, 2025 at 10:21 am

The times it takes for any of the candidates, or at least one of their less robotic campaign staffers if they have any, to read this long post is much shorter than the introduction to a one-room campaign stop; but it could be the salvation of that campaign as both the whole Land of Egypt and the whole family of Israel were saved from famine because a wise and inspired Pharaoh plucked a wrongly-incarcerated Joseph out of prison, listened to his ideas, and made him second in command over the entire land of Egypt.
Alan Wilson knows me, at least by sight and reputation but his dad was indelibly impressed with my work as early as 1992; and it is time for him to remember me 33 years too later (but better than never) as Pharaoh’s butler remembered him three years late.
Pamela Evette’s predecessor, Henry McMaster, also knows me by sight and reputation although he sometimes listen to his loud-mouthed idiotic in-law Orin Briggs.
Nancy Mace may or may not remember me from when she was co-founder of a then-budding FITSNews.
But I offer myself to all candidates for South Carolina’s governorship and ask each to read for him/herself my 1992 “Cycle Breaker” welfare and medical care reform plan, which had then impressed Congressman Floyd Spence, Governor Carol Campbell, and then-State-Senator Joe Wilson, among others. My “Cycle Breaker” was killed by the then-and-still-ruling DEI clan at USC just as Joseph’s brothers had conspired to kill him so his dreams would die with him.
I want those candidates to let me explain to them how my plan is radically different from anything proposed before or since and how it is still possible and necessary today. I want those candidates to make it a race on who understands my ideas and runs with them fastest, not an auction on who hates foreigners most.
You see: unlike arrogant WASPs and Salafis (who have much more in common with each other than either would ever admit) I do not view the Old Testament as a Hebrew invention or a series of fables and superstitions. Rather, it is all perfectly consistent with modern knowledge of Biology and Ecology. Each of Pharaoh in his royal bed and Joseph on his prison hard floor worried about crop failures and/or cycles of draughts and deluges. And by accepting each other as equal humans, they helped each other invent grain storage which staved off the famine.
And they did not accomplish that by lazy lawyerly words but by energetic scientific works.
Joseph’s first use of his sudden awesome powers was to “go out to survey the Land of Egypt.” That is the first rule of Science: do NOT arm-chair speculate but OBSERVE and MEASURE.
I offer my God-given wonder of an intellect equally to all the candidates though, as a Catholic-educated convert to Christian Orthodoxy, my natural preference is for the one-husband-for-life woman. But I ask the (twice?) divorced woman among the candidates to not make conservatism an auction of who hates foreigners most.
I also fear Alan Wilson’s loyalty to his staff will make him put Hatchet-for-Hire Heather (Weiss) ahead of his county.
Yet, I hope Hatchet-for-Hire Heather remembers and acknowledges that, after I had, thank God and WITHOUT A LAWYER, and in Judge Clifton Newman’s court no less, thwarted Hatchet-for-Hire Heather’s evil scheme to imprison me for 36 years (yes, thirty-six) on criminal charges she more than others KNEW to be FALSE, and we were, after 11:30 pm on Friday, 26 February 2010, retrieving our respective exhibits from the court reporter (there can be appeal where there was no conviction), I asked Hatchet-for-Hire Heather where do the court exhibits go. She gruffly responded “Do not talk to me.” I instinctively replied, “I will talk to you and I will love you.”
I did then love her as my enemy and still do.
But I do not YET forgive her.
In my theology, contrition of the wrong-doer is “a condition precedent” to forgiveness.
Nor, again in my theology, is the victim of the wrong-doer allowed to passively await the wrong-doer’s contrition. We victims are required, indeed that (still in my theology) is the promise we make to God in the Lord’s prayer, to bring the wrong-doer into contrition so we may forgive him/her.
And contrition is NOT mere words. It is actions. It is Zacchaeus’ refund of fourfold that of which he cheated others. It is the “making amends” of the 12-step program. It is the restitution and punitive damages of civil law.
I was impressed by Mrs. Erica Kirk’s reported public forgiveness of her husband’s assassin (I hope that means opposing the death penalty for ALL offenders, including that assassin) and public gratitude to the Hindu Usha Chilukuri Vance’s comforting Mrs. Kirk after the tragedy.
Contemporaneously, the FaceBook post of the truly sweet, smart and studious, Myra Catherine Crosby (aka “Juror 785” and “the egg juror”) noted that yesterday was 2025’s Universal Wives’ Day.
Coptic Orthodox Christians’ wedding invitations in my youth (before they regrettably moved from the spirituality of a Holy Sacrament into the worldliness of a banquet) usually opened by quoting Proverbs 31:10, the implication being the bridegroom was blessed to find a wife of noble character.
Parenthetically, that ideal Old Testament wife is a business woman like Pamela and physically muscular like Nancy.
But I quote Proverbs 31:10-31 (New International Version) and ask the readers to consider that the Bible, in BOTH testaments, makes wisdom (proverbs 31:26) and kindness to the needy/stranger (Proverbs 31:10) basic practices of the believer:
10 A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.
11 Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.
12 She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
13 She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands.
14 She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar.
15 She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants.
16 She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night.
19 In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
20 She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.
21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
22 She makes coverings for her bed; she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:
29 “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”
30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
31 Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

I want Mrs. Kirk to go and PERSONALLY minister to her husband’s assassin as Pope John Paul II (Subito!) went and ministered to his attempted assassin.
And I want to Hatchet-for-Hire Heather to make amends to me by PUBLICLY disavowing her schemes to discredit me and MY intellect, an intellect which dazzled jurists to the point of stating ON TRANSCRIBED RECORDS how “amazed” they are at how “better than most lawyers” I am. I want Hatchet-for-Hire Heather to ACTIVELY campaign for my ideas of making crime investigations more scientific AT THE THRESHOLD and changing prison-pushing sentencing into preventive sentencing.
Thank God, I lived 33 years after the DEI clan at USC tried to kill me and my “Cycle Breaker” dreams, and lived another day after chest tightness to write this post.
God bless the patient and the wise.

Reply
SubZeroIQ September 22, 2025 at 3:25 pm

Thank God, I lived to write the foregoing; and God’s grace is perfected in weakness, for a new thorn in flesh is the blurriness of my eyes after ever-shortening reading/writing times.
So, typos occur.
Pharaoh’s butler remembered Joseph three years late. The pronoun “him” has no antecedent in my sentence above.
And “no” is inadvertently missing in a parenthetical sentence above. The correct statement is “(there can be NO appeal where there was no conviction).”
Please excuse my typos and let me know if there are others I am still missing.
Thanks and God bless.

Reply

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