Rep. Nancy Mace (R) is trying to avoid an upset in her South Carolina primary while facing backlash from some members of her party.
Mace, who switched seats in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District in 2020, is the front-runner in Tuesday’s primary against Catherine Templeton, a former state government employee. However, recent polls have shown the incumbent to be below the 50 percent mark, suggesting there is a chance she could be forced into a runoff.
The primaries come as Mace faces allegations of reversals on key issues, criticism over his shift in support to former President Trump, anger within Republican ranks over his vote to recall former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R -California) and turnover in its Capitol Hill office. At one point, her own former chief of staff filed a lawsuit against her.
“She’s controversial… She bounces from one position to another with the ease of a bird flying through the air,” said Chip Felkel, a Republican strategist in South Carolina.
“She uses the media quite effectively and gets away with it – but when your chief of staff runs against you, I’d say that’s a warning sign. When you have the staff turnover that she has, I would say that’s a warning sign,” Felkel said, adding that the lawmaker is following the “Trump playbook.”
Shortly after taking office in 2021, Mace criticized Trump for his rhetoric surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the former president argued. legacy was “eliminated” for the insurrection and pushed the party rebuild.” In the midterm elections, Trump supported a Mace challenger, labeling the congresswoman “disloyal” to the Republican Party, although Mace ultimately won re-election to a second term.
This time, however, Mace supported Trump as he sought to return to the White House – and Trump returned the compliment by endorsing her. He called her a “strong, conservative voice” and praised her help following her victory in the South Carolina primary against former rival Nikki Haley, the state’s former governor. There were also rumors that Mace was a potential name on Trump’s list of running mates.
Mace’s shift toward Trump, which she championed last week, is one of the points her 2024 rivals have been hammering throughout the campaign. Templeton called Mace “fraud” that “claims loyalty” to the former president.
Alex Stroman, former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, said that while voters may know Mace’s “tense history” with Trump, his decision to defend his re-election bid may have overshadowed previous concerns and taken away some the wind in your competitor’s sails. .
But Templeton, who runs to the right of the House incumbent, also supports Trump, which could be leading to some electoral confusion about which candidate is most closely tied to the former president, said Gibbs Knotts, a political science professor at the College of Charleston.
Meanwhile, Mace also came under fire from within her party for joining seven other Republicans last year in voting to remove McCarthy from her House leadership role, the first time in history that the lower chamber has expelled its speaker.
The South Carolina lawmaker was the only Republican woman to vote for removal and said that in the days following the move left her feeling “demonized” on Capitol Hill.
Mace and McCarthy have feuded since the vote, and while the former House speaker has not explicitly supported Templeton, he is been involved with efforts to raise adversaries against the Republican lawmakers who fired him. Huge amounts of external money entered the race, as groups linked to McCarthy worked to boost Templeton.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who replaced McCarthy, is in Mace’s cornerwhile another former president, Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), is trailing Templeton.
Mace was also investigated for a series of staff firings and firings during her first year in Congress. Her former chief of staff, Dan Hanlon, filed suit to challenge her – allegedly after the incentive of McCarthy – although he later gave up.
“She has some very real issues that I think have been exposed during her time in Congress,” Stroman said. “Obviously, she doesn’t have any friends in the former speaker of the House, but she also has Trump’s endorsement.”
“In a normal year, or in normal times, I think a lot of these things … could have disqualified her for a lot of voters,” Stroman said of Mace’s tensions with McCarthy and her shift in support for the former president. But, days before the elections, “it doesn’t seem like it’s enough to get her out.”
Dave Wilson, another South Carolina-based Republican strategist, suggested that Lowcountry voters are dismissing the controversy surrounding the lawmaker as “DC Beltway politics.”
An Emerson College/The Hill poll from last month found Mace with a comfortable lead over Templeton.
But she was still shy of making it through the primary with 47 percent, and with fellow Republican Bill Young also on the ticket, it’s not out of the question that Mace will be forced into a second round.
“There’s always the possibility of a runoff, because in South Carolina you have to have 50 percent plus one,” Wilson said, adding that there’s a chance Mace “won’t be able to do it” with three Republican candidates in the ring.
A second round would take place on June 25.
“This is always risky – will your supporters speak out again? Having to campaign for another two weeks, perhaps an incumbent will appear vulnerable, and perhaps [that] it would give the people of Templeton a little hope,” Knotts said.
On the Democratic side, Michael B. Moore and military veteran Mac Deford are running to the party, wave, but the Republican Party’s victory is practically guaranteed in November. The electorally deficient nonpartisan Cook Political Report changed the district in the “Solid Republican” column last month.
Still, the obvious tension within the Republican Party could open the door for Democrats to regain some ground in the district in the future, argued Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist whose firm is based in the Palmetto State.
Mace found himself “in the middle of political roads, [getting] hit by cars coming from both sides of the political highway,” Seawright said.
The back-and-forth between Mace and Templeton, in particular, has become intense, strategists said. Templeton hit Mace in recent days Through a Washington Post Report that she spent an average of thousands of dollars a month last year through a reimbursement program for members of Congress.
Mace, in turn, criticized his challenger’s criticism as “desperate cries from a desperate campaign that knows they will have the clock cleared on Tuesday,” according to a statement shared with The Hill.
The race, which comes days after Trump was convicted in his Manhattan silent case, could also be a test of the former president’s endorsement power following the guilty verdict. Political observers question how the unprecedented trial will impact his presidential bid — and whether it could harm candidates he supports.
“This is where you really start to see the presidential race unfold,” Wilson said. “How well does Trump’s endorsement work in this particular race? This shows the messaging performance of him, his surrogates, and his endorsees. Mace won reelection in 2022 against a Trump-endorsed rival.
“I think a big part of this will be a referendum on Nancy Mace as much as a referendum on Trump,” Knotts said. “She is certainly someone who is in the headlines a lot. I think some people will like this. And there are probably other people who might not like the drama very much.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
