Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, a Republican, says she isn’t worried about becoming the first incumbent to lose a primary challenger backed by former President Donald Trump.
“We’re going to win by double digits,” Mace said in a Fox News interview. “It appears to be that way.”
Mace, a freshman representative in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District – a key swing seat – is facing a primary challenge from Katie Arrington, a former state legislator backed by Trump, who is still the most popular and influential politician in the GOP for nearly 17 months after leaving the White House.
“I’m optimistic, but cautiously. The only poll that matters, of course, is the one conducted on election day “In an interview with former ambassador and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley on Sunday, Mace issued a cautionary warning.
Nikki Haley, a former UN ambassador and current governor of South Carolina, speaks at a campaign event for Republican Rep. Nancy Mace in Summerville, South Carolina on June 12, 2022.
Nikki Haley, a former UN ambassador and current governor of South Carolina, speaks at a campaign event for Republican Rep. Nancy Mace in Summerville, South Carolina on June 12, 2022. (Fox News)
However, she went on to boast about how “We’re getting a lot of help…
We’ve reached the apex of our journey.”
Mace was an early backer of Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. And she was not one of the ten House Republicans who voted to impeach the then-president for fueling the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol by right-wing extremists and other Trump supporters who aimed to disrupt congressional certification of now-President Biden’s 2020 election victory. However, in the days leading up to the Capitol storming, Mace stated publicly that Trump’s statements “placed all of our lives in jeopardy.”
Last October, Mace was the lone Republican from South Carolina to vote with congressional Democrats to hold former Trump White House senior strategist Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for ignoring a subpoena issued by the House select committee investigating the Capitol brawl.
In February, Trump endorsed Arrington as she began a primary campaign, and at a rally in South Carolina in March, he lauded Arrington and chastised Mace. Mace “is a bad person” who “has no idea what she’s doing,” according to an Arrington TV ad that utilises a clip from Trump’s rally. In a tele-rally for Arrington last Tuesday, he took aim at Mace once more.
Katie Arrington spoke to Fox News on Trump’s backing of her campaign “Right now, the Republican Party’s heart is beating faster than ever. We in this district want someone who will embody the three key values…he represents hope for a better tomorrow. Faith, family, and liberty are all important to us.”
“That’s why Donald Trump endorsed me, and that’s why this district will vote for me on June 14,” she said.
In the waning hours of the primary campaign, Arrington was interviewed when she and a few dozen volunteers huddled in her Summerville, South Carolina home and dialled voters for support.
For much of the last decade, former Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, who was an outspoken Trump opponent, represented the First Congressional District, which encompasses much of coastal South Carolina, including the fast-growing suburbs surrounding the city of Charleston.
In the 2018 Republican primary, Arrington challenged and defeated Sanford, with Trump’s help. However, she was defeated by Democrat Joe Cunningham in the general election by a razor-thin margin during a particularly difficult election season for Republicans. Two years later, in 2020, Mace won a razor-thin victory over Cunningham, flipping the seat from blue to red.
“My opponent is the one who, in 2018, for the first time in 40 years, lost his seat to a Democrat,” Mace said on Fox News.
She brought it up in a speech to supporters at Halls Chophouse in Summerville “Swing districts, such as the First Congressional District, play a key role in regaining the majority in this country. We need to win this district if we want to have a Republican majority in November and undo what Joe Biden has done to our country in the last year and a half.”
“And that means we have to nominate someone who knows how to win, and I am the only woman on the ballot who knows how to win the First Congressional District,” the incumbent said, taking a shot at Arrington.
Haley, who was elected and re-elected as governor of South Carolina before serving as the Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, was standing beside Mace and introducing her. However, in this high-profile Republican showdown, Haley and Trump are on opposing sides.
“Nancy Mace is a sassy lady with a steely determination. She’s going around [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi like a mermaid “The crowd erupted in applause when Haley said something. “She isn’t one to give in easily.”
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That’s something Haley brought up “You may not agree with everything she does, but she fights for you every day and every time, whether it’s the establishment Republicans, the resistance Republicans, or anyone who thinks you can put Nancy in a box. Because, at the end of the day, the only box that matters to her is the First Congressional District, and she’s never forgotten who she represents.”
Nikki Haley, a former UN ambassador and current governor of South Carolina, speaks at a campaign event for Republican Rep. Nancy Mace in Summerville, South Carolina on June 12, 2022.