McMaster Set to Become Governor

Pres­id­ent-elect Don­ald Trump nom­in­ated Gov. Nikki Haley (R) as his am­bas­sad­or to the United Na­tions. (re­lease)

Haley: “I will re­main as gov­ernor un­til the U.S. Sen­ate acts af­firm­at­ively on my nom­in­a­tion.” (re­lease)

WHAT COMES NEXT. “If Haley is con­firmed, Lt. Gov. Henry Mc­Mas­ter (R), a former U.S. at­tor­ney and S.C. at­tor­ney gen­er­al, would be­come gov­ernor. Mc­Mas­ter, a 69-year-old Columbia at­tor­ney, has craved the gov­ernor’s seat since los­ing the 2010 GOP primary elec­tion to Haley. Mc­Mas­ter was the first statewide politi­cian to back Trump’s up­start pres­id­en­tial bid.” (Char­le­ston Post & Cour­i­er)

“The 2018 GOP gubernat­ori­al field was ex­pec­ted to be crowded, with at least a half dozen can­did­ates. But if … Haley is con­firmed, … Mc­Mas­ter … would run as an in­cum­bent in two years. In­cum­bents have the be­ne­fit of name re­cog­ni­tion, and a chal­lenger would face an up­hill battle.”

State Sen. Tom Dav­is (R) “said he is weigh­ing wheth­er he can af­ford to put in the time ne­ces­sary to suc­cess­fully run for gov­ernor. He said he will as­sess next spring.”

“Mean­while, the first can­did­ate to of­fi­cially an­nounce a 2018 bid,” state Speak­er Pro Tem­pore Tommy Pope (R), “said he wouldn’t work against Mc­Mas­ter. … Pope ad­ded that he would look as things evolve and see where he needs to be in 2018. An­oth­er po­ten­tial 2018 can­did­ate, former De­part­ment of Health and En­vir­on­ment­al Con­trol chief Cath­er­ine Tem­pleton of Char­le­ston, said Wed­nes­day she had planned to make a form­al an­nounce­ment about the gov­ernor’s race in Janu­ary.” (Columbia State)

Pope “will pre-file a bill next month cla­ri­fy­ing when a lieu­ten­ant gov­ernor run­ning mate can be se­lec­ted, the seat’s fun­drais­ing lim­its and the re­spons­ib­il­it­ies of the of­fice. … The bill … would let gubernat­ori­al can­did­ates choose their run­ning mate after the the primar­ies, which would al­low run­ner-ups to be named a lieu­ten­ant gov­ernor can­did­ate. But the bill also wouldn’t pre­vent can­did­ates from an­noun­cing a tick­et be­fore the primar­ies.” (Char­le­ston Post & Cour­i­er)