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.
More than a third of the GOP electorate – – remained undecided, according to the survey.
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.”
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, 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, viewed her favorably compared to 6% who had an unfavorable view – while viewed Wilson favorably compared to 10% who viewed him unfavorably. Norman had favorability and 8% unfavorables.
Co/efficient surveyed 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.
(Provided)
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.
