South Carolina AG mounts gubernatorial bid, advocates for abolishing state income tax, DOGE-ing government

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South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, an adopted son of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., has announced a Palmetto State gubernatorial bid.

"As your governor, we'll deliver meaningful relief to hard-working people. We're going to finally eliminate the state income tax," Wilson, who has served as the state's attorney general since 2011, said during a speech on Monday.

"We're going to DOGE South Carolina government from top to bottom," he declared. "We will root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and we will expose it."

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U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who has said that she is considering running for governor, has previously accused Wilson of protecting pedophiles.

"How does Alan Wilson explain his record of protecting kids vs. protecting p*dos? You either protect kids or you protect p*dos. You can't do both. Alan Wilson chose p*dophiles. Hold the line," Mace wrote in an April post on X.

Robert Kittle, spokesperson for the state attorney general's office, called Mace's accusations "ridiculous," telling Fox News Digital in an email on Tuesday that as an assistant attorney general, Wilson previously "prosecuted, and put behind bars, people who sexually abused children."

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Wilson appeared to push back against Mace's attacks in a lengthy post on X in May.

"I will not stand by and allow someone to lie about, not only me, but the dedicated men and women in my office who've been in the trenches protecting kids for years. 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. Enough is enough. Over the course of the last several weeks, this would-be candidate has peddled lies and mistruths for her own political ambitions and clicks on social media," he asserted. 

"Specifically, she has brought up a handful of cases from the last decade related to offenders that obtained illegal images of children. Let me be clear, our ICAC (Internet Crimes Against Children) division has worked to get these criminals before a judge and hold them accountable. Our objective is to indict, prosecute, and get them added to the Sex Offender Registry," he noted in part of the long post. 

"When the would-be candidate for Governor criticizes the Attorney General's Office, she's purposefully omitting the fact that judges give sentences, not prosecutors. When she criticizes the prosecutors, she's ignorant to the fact that often, our office is working in sync with a federal agencies that can get more time," Wilson declared.

Mace fired back at the time, describing the post as "a very long-winded deflection full of excuses, half-truths and lies, as to why you can't seem to do your job effectively as South Carolina Attorney General." 

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Current Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, is not eligible to seek another term in 2026 because the state constitution stipulates, "No person shall be elected Governor for more than two successive terms."

McMaster, who became governor in 2017 after Gov. Nikki Haley, also a Republican, stepped down to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, won the state's 2018 and 2022 gubernatorial elections.