Morning Digest: Why do GOP primaries keep getting so nasty before they even start?

For months, Nancy Mace has been slamming Alan Wilson—and he just joined the race

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, Republican candidate for governor (credit: Alan Wilson Facebook)

Leading Off

SC-Gov

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson is set to announce his campaign for governor on Monday, a move that will make him the first major Republican to enter the race for this open seat.

The new candidate, who is the son of longtime Rep. Joe Wilson, has been waiting many years for his shot at the state's top job. But even though he's only just joined the race, he's already spent the last few months getting lambasted by one of his likely primary rivals.

"He won't prosecute child trafficking, he won't prosecute sex trafficking, he won't prosecute rape," Rep. Nancy Mace told reporters in January. "He allows illegals to run rampant in our state, and he has no business even thinking about running for governor."

Mace, who pledged to "personally make sure that [Wilson] is never governor," has reportedly employed even more extreme imagery in less public settings. The Charleston Post & Courier said in February that the congresswoman told a legislator she would put Wilson "in a body bag" in the primary.

Mace generated national attention later that month when she accused the attorney general of failing to prosecute four men she accused of rape. Wilson responded by calling the claim "categorically false" and saying that he hadn't even previously heard about the case.

Mace has spent the ensuing months savaging her would-be opponent as weak on crime, including crimes against children, while Wilson has defended his record.

The attorney general wrote in a May post on social media, "A would-be candidate for Governor is attacking me, prosecutors, and our law enforcement partners who put their life on the line to protect children and catch predators."

Wilson continued by accusing Mace of "purposefully omitting the fact that judges give sentences, not prosecutors" and "us[ing] lies, misinformation, and half truths (at best) to cast a negative light on hardworking men and women of law enforcement."

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The congresswoman, however, remains undeterred.

"Alan Wilson wants you to believe he's tough on crime," she wrote on social media last week, "but when it came to prosecuting a predator with child p*rn of toddlers, he blinked."

All of this comes ahead of what promises to be a much nastier primary than any of Wilson's previous battles.

The candidate ran for attorney general in 2010 when incumbent Henry McMaster left to wage an unsuccessful bid for governor. That campaign took place less than a year after his father temporarily became one of the most prominent (and notorious) Republicans in the nation after he screamed "You lie!" at Barack Obama during a congressional address in 2009.

During Wilson's campaign to be the state's top law enforcement official, his detractors ran ads during the primary contest declaring, "Getting elected because of who your daddy is part of South Carolina's past, not its future." That offensive, though, didn't stop Wilson from decisively winning the nomination in a runoff, and he went on to a convincing victory in the general election in this conservative state.

The new attorney general, however, had to wait for quite some time before he had an opening to wage his long-anticipated campaign for governor.

While everyone anticipated a busy 2018 contest to succeed termed-out Gov. Nikki Haley, everything changed when Donald Trump tapped her as his ambassador to the United Nations right after he claimed the White House for the first time. McMaster, who had been elected lieutenant governor in 2014, was elevated to the top job and went on to win two full terms.

But while Wilson didn't face any term limits himself, there was no guarantee he'd even still be in office by the time he had a shot at the governorship.

The attorney general easily won reelection in 2014, but he began to earn bad headlines starting in 2016 when he unsuccessfully attempted to remove the special prosecutor he'd appointed to investigate Richard Quinn, a powerful lobbyist who counted Wilson among his many clients.

Wilson faced two primary foes in 2018 who highlighted his ties to the "Quinndom," and their attacks threatened to end his career. In the primary, the incumbent took just 49% of the vote—below the majority he needed to avoid a runoff. Wilson survived, though, by prevailing 65-35 in the second round, and he went on to win again in the fall. (Quinn, who was sentenced to 18 months of home detention in 2023, died last year.)

In 2020, Wilson joined in a failed lawsuit to overturn Trump's loss, and Trump rewarded him two years later with his endorsement. He went on to win renomination by a 66-34 margin against an election conspiracy theorist, though his showing indicated that a sizable minority of Palmetto State Republicans were still displeased with their longtime attorney general.

Wilson finally has his chance to run for the state's top job now that McMaster, who is the longest-serving governor in South Carolina history, faces term limits. Many other Republicans, though, are also looking at taking part in what will be the state's first open governor's race since 2010.

Mace, a one-time Trump critic who has refashioned herself into an over-the-top Trumpist, has long looked like an all but certain contender, and one source even told Axios in April she was "99.9%" on her way to deciding.

But the congresswoman seems to be in no hurry to resolve that lingering 0.01% uncertainty. While Mace said earlier this month that she wanted to decide "pretty soon," she told the conservative Washington Examiner last week she'd make up her mind "by the end of summer."

Fellow Rep. Ralph Norman, meanwhile, has said he'll decide this month. Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and state Sens. Sean Bennett and Josh Kimbrell have also expressed interest, and the latter announced the formation of an exploratory committee back in March. Wealthy businessman John Warren, who lost the 2018 primary to McMaster, has likewise talked about running again.

Finally, there's Mark Sanford, the former governor and two-time congressman who, unlike Mace, has never worked his way off Trump's shitlist. Pluribus reported back in February that the noted hiker was considering running for his old job again, but we've heard nothing new in the intervening months.

Morning Digest: Mark Sanford could emerge from the wilderness for one more campaign

Democrats haven't held the governorship since Sanford unseated incumbent Jim Hodges in 2002, but one potential candidate is interested in breaking this long losing streak.

State Rep. Jermaine Johnson, who was a basketball standout at the College of Charleston, said this month that he was creating an exploratory committee. Johnson would be South Carolina's first Black chief executive, as well as the first Democrat to win statewide office since 2006.

NYC's messy primary goes down to the wire

Governors

IL-Gov, IL-Sen

Republican Rep. Darin LaHood tells the conservative site Center Square that he hasn't ruled out challenging Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker next year. The congressman has also flirted with running for Illinois' open U.S. Senate seat and said earlier this month he'll decide on that race "in the near future."

Some conservatives, though, want a different—and far more infamous—member of this blue state's small GOP House delegation to take on Pritzker. State Rep. Adam Niemerg is talking up Rep. Mary Miller as a possible candidate for governor, telling Axios, "I think she would be a great candidate to take on Governor Pritzker for the governor's mansion."

Miller, whom Niemerg believes "stands for the future of the Illinois Republican Party," has not shown any obvious interest in such an undertaking.

TX-Gov

Rancher Bobby Cole on Monday became the first notable Democrat to announce a campaign against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who is seeking a fourth term next year.

Cole, a retired firefighter and first-time candidate, kicked off his effort with a video that features bulls destroying China. The Democrat tells the audience, "[T]hat's what Greg Abbott's been doing to the people of the state of Texas. Tearing up everything we've built."

Cole, who faults Abbott for attacking abortion rights and letting Texas' energy grid fall into disrepair, also pledges to "stand up to Trump's extremism and Elon's corporate greed."

House

AZ-07

Former Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva has begun airing ads featuring audio of her late father, Rep. Raul Grijalva, ahead of the July 15 special Democratic primary for his vacant seat.

"Our community meant everything to my husband," says Ramona Grijalva, the candidate's mother. The audience then hears the congressman declare, "They told me not to give up," and, "The fight's not over."

Grijalva's mother goes on to talk up the candidate's record in office before pledging she'll "fight with the same courage and voice that Raul did."

Grijalva faces former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez and progressive organizer Deja Foxx in next month's nomination contest for Arizona's 7th District. The winner will be favored in the Sept. 23 general election for a constituency that, according to calculations by The Downballot, supported Kamala Harris 60-38 last year.

Obituaries

Blake Farenthold

Former Texas Rep. Blake Farenthold, a Republican who won his seat in one of the biggest surprises of 2010 but later resigned due to sexual harassment allegations by a former staffer, died Friday at the age of 63.

We chronicled Farenthold's unlikely career in 2017, when he initially announced he would not seek reelection to Texas' 27th District, a seat based in the Corpus Christie area. The congressman resigned the following year, reportedly to avoid an investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

Farenthold had been a conservative radio host when he decided to take on longtime Democratic Rep. Solomon Ortiz in 2010, but his ultra-longshot campaign attracted virtually no notice until the final month of the race. The first time most political observers heard of him was when a photo surfaced showing him in duck pajamas with a scantily clad model leaning up against him.

That bizarre moment of notoriety seemed to be the last anyone would hear of the Republican, but the November red wave and weak Democratic turnout helped propel him to a shocking 775-vote win against the 14-term incumbent. Republican mapmakers soon gerrymandered his seat and gave this "accidental congressman" a much longer career than anyone had counted on.

Farenthold, however, ultimately departed from office over a long-running sexual harassment scandal and other allegations concerning his behavior. You can find much more on these scandals in our 2017 retrospective on the one-time congressman.