U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace has won the Republican nomination after a tumultuous second term in South Carolina that saw her go from an enemy to ally of former President Donald Trump and make headlines for plenty of things off the House floor.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace has won the Republican nomination after a tumultuous second term in South Carolina that saw her go from an enemy to ally of former President Donald Trump and make headlines for plenty of things off the House floor.
Mace defeated challengers Catherine Templeton and Bill Young in voting that ended Tuesday. She will face a Democratic opponent in the general election in the 1st District, which is the closest thing South Carolina has to a swing district in the Republican-dominated state.
Trump’s endorsement – after he called her crazy and terrible in 2022 – is just one of many ways Mace has attracted a spotlight far greater than a typical second-term member of Congress.
She’s a regular on interview shows, often antagonizing the hosts. She calls for her party to moderate on abortion and marijuana but joined seven of the farthest right members to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
McCarthy threw his weight against Mace and the other defectors. His political action committee gave a $10,000 contribution to Templeton, and the American Prosperity Alliance, where a McCarthy ally serves as a senior adviser, donated to a group called South Carolina Patriots PAC, which spent more than $2.1 million against Mace.
Mace has said her positions and beliefs aren’t erratic – she is just reflecting the values of the 1st District, which stretches from the centuries-old neighborhoods of Charleston down the coast to Beaufort County’s booming freshly built neighborhoods of retirees moving to South Carolina from somewhere else.
Her opponents argued that by seeming to land everywhere on issues, Mace is nowhere.
