Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Drew McKissick, the incumbent candidate running for reelection as South Carolina’s state GOP chairman, delivering a blow to fringe Trump loyalist Lin Wood’s bid for the position.
The endorsement: Trump released a statement Tuesday confirming his “Complete and Total endorsement” of McKissick, who has held the position since 2017.
- McKissick, a firm supporter of the former president, led the state party in censuring South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice for voting in favor of Trump’s second impeachment in January.
- “Drew McKissick has done an outstanding job as South Carolina GOP Chairman, electing more Republicans in 2020 than in over 140 years,” Trump said. “Drew fought all the way to the Supreme Court to defend our voting laws—and WON.”
The response: Wood, who announced his run Monday, appeared to brush off Trump’s rebuff in a Tuesday Telegram post.
- “I only seek ONE endorsement — the endorsement of the members of the South Carolina Republican Party who want to regain control of THEIR party and who are tired of self-serving Rino Republican Old Guard leaders like Drew McKissick,” Wood said.
Background: Wood, who served as “the lawyer for the damned” championing figures beleagured in the mainstream media, gained national notoriety for advocating increasingly radical theories of election fraud in President Joe Biden’s Nov. 3 victory over Trump.
- The Atlanta native faces an election fraud inquiry in Georgia and a legal battle with the Georgia Bar Association, which issued an ultimatum threatening his law license if he did not take a mental fitness exam.
