ELECTION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “The crowded and expensive South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary is coming down to whether voters want a veteran politician who is personally close to President Donald Trump or one of two political outsiders—one who resembles him in tone, the other in professional experience. The June 12 primary is unusual because the governor, who has been in office for 16 months, is in the race, and it has been decades since a sitting governor of South Carolina faced a competitive intraparty challenge. But Gov. Henry McMaster, who was lieutenant governor, inherited the job when Mr. Trump made Nikki Haley his ambassador to the United Nations—a move seen by Republicans in the state as a thank-you for Mr. McMaster’s early endorsement of Mr. Trump…Mr. McMaster, 71 years old, has been a political fixture since the early 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan named him U.S. Attorney for South Carolina. He also served as state attorney general and state party chairman.”
-Valerie Bauerlein, “Donald Trump’s Clout Looms Large in South Carolina GOP Primary,” The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2018 7:00 am