President Donald Trump’s favored candidate for South Carolina governor was projected to lose her runoff election to the state’s attorney general Tuesday, although Trump immediately took credit for Alan Wilson’s victory after having endorsed them both last week.Trump had originally backed Pamela Evette, the state’s sitting lieutenant governor, before the June 9 primary, where she faced Wilson, the son of former South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson, and four other candidates. But after she finished fewer than 3 percentage points ahead of Wilson in that election, Trump altered course.“I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson! It’s a Wealth of Riches – With either one you can’t go wrong. Vote for Pam or Alan,” he wrote in a Friday social media post.Just 21 days earlier, he had lavished praise on Evette in an unusually lengthy, 354-word endorsement that mentioned neither Wilson nor any of the other four candidates running in the primary. “Pam has my Complete and Total Endorsement — SHE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump wrote then.Within seconds of The Associated Press’ projection that Wilson would win Tuesday evening, Trump posted on social media: “ALAN WILSON WINS! ENDORSED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP!”Trump likes to brag that his endorsement of a candidate is all but a guarantee of success, but his record is largely built on endorsing incumbents facing little or no serious opposition and by waiting to see who is likely to win a contested primary and then endorsing that person. His “total and complete endorsements” are nearly always filled with boilerplate language that claims the candidate in question is “America first,” supports the “always under siege Second Amendment,” and will “never let you down,” although the capitalization and punctuation vary.Trump recently saw two of his endorsed candidates for governor lose in primaries. U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra was defeated by Zach Lahn in Iowa, while Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones lost to self-funded billionaire businessman Rick Jackson.Wilson will now face Democratic nominee Jermaine Johnson in the November general election. Johnson is a state legislator and former professional basketball player who played in overseas leagues but not in the NBA. He won a clear majority of the vote against two opponents June 9.South Carolina has not elected a Democrat for governor since 1998 and has not chosen a Democratic statewide officer of any kind since 2006, when Jim Rex became the state’s superintendent of education.