McMaster Wins Governor’s Primary in South Carolina After Boost From Trump

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Lifted by a last-minute appearance with President Donald Trump, Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina won a Republican runoff for governor Tuesday in a race that evolved into a test of the president’s clout with conservatives.

McMaster handily defeated John Warren, a first-time candidate and former Marine, The Associated Press reported.

South Carolina was one of seven states where voters went the polls Tuesday, a day when Utah Republicans were expected to begin Mitt Romney’s political revival and Democrats in Maryland and Colorado were wrestling with how far left they were willing to go in governor’s races.

It was here, though, that Trump’s willingness to take a gamble for an ally paid off.

Trump has proved adept at bruising his adversaries but has had less success in office propelling allies to victory. But the governor’s triumph was a clear victory for the president, and capped a day of resounding success for him after two major Supreme Court rulings went his way Tuesday morning.

Putting his political capital on the line to repay McMaster, Trump flew into the state Monday night to appear with the governor and urge Republican voters to back one of the few elected officials who were willing to get behind his candidacy at the outset of 2016. McMaster ascended to the governorship last year when Trump appointed Nikki R. Haley as his ambassador to the United Nations.

The president acknowledged he was taking a risk in standing with McMaster, telling voters in a suburb just west of here that the news media would portray a loss as a “humiliating defeat” for the White House. But his staff had also gotten assurances from the governor last week that he was ahead in the polls.

A political veteran who was battered for representing the status quo at a moment when Republicans are hungry for outsiders, McMaster, 71, was forced into a runoff two weeks ago by Warren, 39, after failing to garner a majority of the vote in the state’s primary.

But the White House staged something of a rescue mission to ensure the governor’s renomination, sending Vice President Mike Pence to campaign with McMaster on Saturday in addition to Trump’s Monday night rally.

McMaster will face James Smith, a Democratic state lawmaker who is close to former Vice President Joe Biden, in the general election. It is a race that could become competitive if Smith is able to raise the money needed to increase his visibility.

In Utah, Romney was expected to easily win the Republican Senate nomination for the seat now held by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, who is retiring. Returning to politics six years after his presidential defeat, and two years after he emerged as a leading anti-Trump voice in his party, the former Massachusetts governor faced some criticism for running in a state that he has not called home for many years. Utah’s heavily conservative Republican convention attendees even backed Romney’s opponent, Mike Kennedy, at the state’s nonbinding nominating convention in April.

But Romney is a deeply admired figure in Utah. In addition to being among the most prominent Mormons in the world, he helped rescue the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. In fact, his political standing is secure enough in the state that on the Sunday before the primary, he wrote an op-ed informing Republican voters that he would continue to speak out against Trump as he saw fit.

Voters in both parties in Colorado, where Gov. John Hickenlooper is term-limited, were choosing nominees for the state’s top job. Rep. Jared Polis, a wealthy progressive who has spent over $11 million of his own money in the primary, and Cary Kennedy, a former state treasurer, were the leading candidates in the Democratic contest. The state treasurer, Walker Stapleton, a Bush family relative, was favored in the Republican primary.

In Maryland, Democratic voters were choosing a nominee to take on Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who enjoys broad popularity but is running in a deep-blue state filled with voters eager to register their contempt for Trump.

The favorites included Ben Jealous, a former NAACP president who was a leading surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race. Jealous, who enjoyed the support of a group of 2020 Democratic White House prospects, including Sanders, benefited from an infusion of out-of-state money.

That allowed him to outspend his main rival for the nomination, Rushern Baker, the Prince George’s County executive. Baker, though, enjoyed a base of support in his heavily-black home county and was backed by many establishment-aligned Democrats in the state, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen and former Gov. Martin O’Malley.

And in a House district that includes parts of the Washington suburbs, David Trone, the co-founder of Total Wine, was testing whether his fortune, and willingness to spend it, would prove sufficient to win a Democratic congressional nomination. Trone spent more than $11 million of his own money in a race to succeed Rep. John Delaney, who is leaving the House to run for president. Two years ago he defeated Trone in the primary despite the retail magnate’s spending $13.4 million out of his own pocket.