HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. — Former President Donald Trump isn’t on the poll this yr, however he would possibly as effectively be.
The overwhelming majority of Republicans appear to be operating to be as pro-Trump as they will, with just some — like Rep. Liz Cheney in Wyoming — standing out for opposing the previous president.
However Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) lands someplace in between. Mace is a former Trump marketing campaign staffer who's now crucial of her onetime boss. But she nonetheless believes deeply in his agenda.
“I supported him in ’16, supported him in ’20 — and nonetheless assist his insurance policies,” Mace informed HuffPost. “It’s OK to have a distinction of opinion on January 6. It’s OK to have a distinction of opinion on quite a lot of points.”
It’s a tricky place when Trump and his supporters so usually demand full loyalty. And certain sufficient, Trump has already come out in opposition to her.
In February, he backed Mace’s challenger, Katie Arrington, within the June 7 GOP main. He known as Mace “very disloyal” to the Republican Occasion.
Mace’s race in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District is one thing of a check to see the place the celebration goes post-Trump — and if there’s a path to run as a conservative loyal to Trump’s insurance policies whereas preserving a distance from, and even outright criticizing, a few of his actions.
“It’s a bellwether to see: What’s the way forward for Trump?” mentioned Gibbs Knotts, a political science professor on the Faculty of Charleston. “It’s a superb indicator to see how a lot sway he has now that he’s out of workplace for a pair years.”
The competition is going on within the closest factor the Palmetto State has to a general-election swing seat, solely including to the stakes of the first.
“That is the kind of district that's going to resolve whether or not we now have Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi (D-Calif.) or Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy (R-Calif.),” Knotts mentioned.
The Trump Balancing Act
Shortly after Trump endorsed Arrington in February, Mace was in midtown Manhattan for TV interviews. Since she was within the neighborhood, Mace determined to tape a video response outdoors Trump Tower.
Within the video, which went viral, Mace reminded viewers of her continued appreciation of Trump’s presidency and appealed to Trump supporters to see her because the surest path to defending his legacy.
“If you'd like a Republican majority to thwart the unconventional, far-left, D.C. Democrat agenda, then we’ve gotta hold this seat in Republican fingers,” she declared. “If you wish to lose this seat as soon as once more in a midterm election cycle to Democrats, then my opponent is greater than certified to just do that.”
The video exemplified Mace’s tightrope stroll as she seeks to attenuate the political harm of her response to the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mace provoked the ire of Trump and his firmest supporters when she voted to certify the 2020 presidential election outcomes and faulted Trump for fomenting the violence of the Jan. 6 rioters.
“His complete legacy was worn out yesterday,” she informed CNN the day after the riot.
Mace didn’t go all-in on the anti-Trump bandwagon after that, although.
As a substitute, she struck a cautious stability. She voted in opposition to impeaching Trump for his conduct main as much as Jan. 6, saying she had “nice questions concerning the constitutionality” of the rushed impeachment course of.
Final Might, she additionally voted in opposition to the creation of a congressional panel to research the occasions of Jan. 6 and publicized her vote to expel Cheney, an outspoken Trump critic, from the management of the Home GOP Convention.
Then in October, Mace broke from the Trump World script as soon as once more. When former Trump aide Steve Bannon refused to adjust to a congressional subpoena, Mace was one in all 9 Republicans to vote to carry him in contempt.
“I do need them to know my perspective, and it comes from a spot of holding the best regard for the Structure.”
- Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.)
Mace has paid a value for her independence. Final July, she obtained a hid carry gun allow after receiving demise threats and having her home graffitied. She says the threats have come from all ends of the political spectrum; the graffiti included anarchist symbols.
To Mace, although, her votes constantly replicate her dedication to the U.S. Structure, a miniature copy of which she carries in her purse always.
“Individuals don’t should agree with my vote,” she informed HuffPost. “However I do need them to know my perspective, and it comes from a spot of holding the best regard for the Structure.”
However in a Republican main in South Carolina, it’s not clear there's room for somebody who's even reasonably crucial of Trump.
Her go to to Trump Tower seems to have executed little to assuage her critics on the correct.
Mara, an area Republican activist and Arrington supporter who declined to offer her household title, known as the video an “embarrassing” show of “groveling.”
Bob Boss, a former Massachusetts-based well being care guide who retired to Hilton Head Island along with his spouse Angela, grew to become a Democrat when Trump received the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. He was extra open to supporting Mace earlier than the Trump Tower video, which he mentioned had triggered a stir amongst his usually apolitical golfing buddies. He known as her district workplace to register his displeasure with the video.
“I believed that was no class in any respect, and I informed her it was terrible,” Boss mentioned.
Maybe conscious of the unfavourable suggestions, Mace sounded a special be aware after the Trump Tower look. “I’m gonna win with out him,” she declared days later.
The True Believer
If Mace reserves the correct to disagree with Trump whereas expressing continued assist for his tax cuts, border enforcement and different insurance policies, Arrington’s loyalty is, against this, unconditional.
Arrington, whom Trump appointed to a Pentagon put up after her failed 2018 Home bid, spoke earlier than Trump at a mid-March rally in North Charleston.
“I’ve been ready a pair weeks to see Huge Daddy come house, and I can't wait,” Arrington informed the group.
At a meet-and-greet in Beaufort in late March, Arrington made certain voters knew she attended the “Cease the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Arrington doesn't imagine that the rioters had been Trump supporters, as a result of, she mentioned, they wore hoodies and medical masks that aren't attribute of Trump voters.
“I’ve executed my analysis. There’s by no means been an assault at a Trump rally from a Trump supporter to a different Trump supporter, nor a Trump supporter to a police officer – not one incident! However but on Jan. 6, Trump individuals did that?!” mentioned Arrington, expressing disbelief at proof that rioters supported Trump.
“So I say, no! The ultra-right and the ultra-left – who usually are not nearly all of People, who usually are not conservatives, who usually are not Democrats – had been these individuals.”
And at a candidate debate on Friday, Arrington mentioned Mace’s vote to certify the 2020 elections was the “number-one motive” Republicans ought to vote Mace out. Had the outcomes been overturned, Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine and the USA wouldn't be coping with inflation, Arrington claimed.
“Whereas Nancy Mace needs to get slowed down in private assaults, the actual fact stays she stabbed President Trump within the again and offered out the Lowcountry to the D.C. Swamp.”
- Chris D'Anna, Arrington marketing campaign spokesperson
It’s unclear what sort of monetary assets Trump is ready to deliver to bear on Arrington’s behalf, particularly given Mace’s fundraising prowess — she raised over $1 million within the first quarter of the yr — and ties to Trump administration officers. Nikki Haley, the previous South Carolina governor turned Trump administration ambassador to the United Nations, and Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump chief of employees and South Carolina congressman, have each endorsed Mace. And Arrington should compete for the right-wing vote in opposition to Lynz Piper-Loomis, who can also be difficult Mace.
However Arrington has discovered a receptive viewers in components of South Carolina’s 1st, the place loads of Republican main voters are offended that Mace criticized Trump after Jan. 6.
“Nancy Mace stabbed President Trump within the again, and he took her to the dance,” mentioned Mara, who backed Mace in 2020. “It’s simply ungrateful.”
Angela Pike, a saleswoman from Mount Nice, is pissed off at what she sees as Mace’s refusal to take election fraud extra critically or clarify her criticism of Trump when pressed.
She additionally dislikes Mace’s cheerleading for the COVID-19 vaccine and what she believes is Mace’s penchant for posing in suggestive outfits in official literature. “I don’t like the best way she makes use of her sexuality,” mentioned Pike, who continues to be deciding between Arrington and one other right-wing challenger.
Pike and different Mace critics referenced a mail merchandise about border safety wherein Mace is sporting a tank high.
The criticism — nevertheless prudish and gendered — displays a broader suspicion within the extra socially conservative corners of South Carolina’s 1st that Mace is simply too younger, cool and culturally liberal.
To that finish, Arrington has blasted Mace for sponsoring laws that will let states develop their very own marijuana insurance policies with out federal intervention.
“Is Nancy Mace excessive?” Arrington asks in her marketing campaign announcement video. Arrington is getting assist amplifying this critique from a Colorado-based anti-marijuana tremendous PAC that's operating adverts attacking Mace.
Mace certainly has a libertarian streak, manifested in her assist for legal justice reform. As a state lawmaker, she shepherded a invoice into legislation that ended the follow of shackling prisoners throughout being pregnant and childbirth. She sees it as a similarity with Trump, who signed a bipartisan sentencing reform invoice into legislation.
And Mace insists that her marijuana laws displays her real dedication to states’ rights.
“It respects the rights of states, which is federalism — very a lot a Republican situation,” she mentioned.
To wit, she voted in opposition to the Democratic invoice decriminalizing marijuana that handed the Home on Friday as a result of she mentioned it doesn't present related deference to particular person states that will not need to decriminalize marijuana.
A few of Mace’s heterodox stances stem from private expertise. When, as a state lawmaker in 2019, she got here out in assist of permitting abortions in instances of incest or rape, Mace revealed for the primary time that she had been raped as a young person. The traumatic occasion led to a tough interval in her life, prompting her to give up college and work at Waffle Home earlier than getting again on her toes. She went on to grow to be the primary feminine graduate of The Citadel, a prestigious army faculty in Charleston.
Mace teared up as she recalled utilizing marijuana to ease the psychological ache she felt after being raped. In contrast to the antidepressants she had been prescribed, marijuana helped her transfer ahead together with her life.
“I believed by my age of 44, I’d be useless or in jail,” Mace mentioned. “I’m not — I’m in Congress, serving a area the place I grew up.”
When HuffPost requested if Mace nonetheless used marijuana, she grinned however declined to reply. “I’m simply going to smile,” she mentioned with a chuckle.
‘The Beat Of Our Personal Drum’
One benefit Mace has over her Trump-backed challenger is that Arrington apparently shares Trump’s penchant for interpersonal drama. A nasty textual content trade with Mulvaney, the previous Trump chief of employees, made it into the native press in March. In response to Arrington calling him a “piece of shit” and questioning whether or not Mulvaney’s Catholicism had made him a poor alternative for Trump administration envoy to Northern Eire, Mulvaney wrote, “You might want to notice that you simply could be unstable.”
Mace has additionally blasted Arrington for allegedly improperly disclosing categorised data to a protection contractor throughout her stint on the Pentagon. The Division of Protection put Arrington on go away and suspended her safety clearance, prompting her to sue the company for denying her an opportunity to clear her title. She reached a settlement settlement with the Pentagon in late January.
“Whereas Nancy Mace needs to get slowed down in private assaults, the actual fact stays she stabbed President Trump within the again and offered out the Lowcountry to the D.C. Swamp,” Chris D’Anna, an Arrington marketing campaign spokesperson, informed HuffPost in a press release.
Maybe extra importantly, South Carolina’s 1st — the place ritzy nation golf equipment dot the marshy coast — has a historical past of electing Republicans who sound extra like Mace than like Arrington.
“There’s a component of sophistication and training on this district that you could be not see in another southern districts,” Knotts mentioned.
The final Republican to characterize the district earlier than Mace was Mark Sanford, a former governor.
Sanford’s destiny provides a cautionary story for Mace, but additionally for Republicans hoping for a Trumpier various.
Like Mace, Sanford was a staunch advocate of decrease taxes and spending and a fierce opponent of oil drilling off South Carolina’s coast. He went additional than Mace, although, in his criticism of Trump, telling one interviewer that Trump had “fanned the flames of intolerance.”
“Nancy Mace is susceptible on each fronts.”
- Trav Robertson, chairman, South Carolina Democratic Occasion
Trump obtained his revenge when he endorsed Arrington, then a colleague of Mace’s within the state Home, in opposition to Sanford within the 2018 main.
With Trump’s assist, Arrington unseated Sanford. (Sanford went on to mount a short and quixotic main run in opposition to Trump in 2019.)
However due partially to her refusal to unequivocally disavow offshore drilling — and partially to a bike accident that sidelined her — Arrington misplaced to Joe Cunningham, a reasonable Democrat, within the normal election. It was the primary time a Democrat had received the seat in about 4 a long time.
Mace defeated Cunningham by a single proportion level two years later, because of a coalition of Trump voters and moderates that had eluded Arrington in 2018.
The lesson, Mace believes, is that nominating Arrington once more dangers ceding the seat to yet one more Democrat. “If I lose the first, Republicans will lose this seat in November for good,” she mentioned.
D’Anna, the Arrington spokesperson, instructed that Mace is attempting to attract consideration away from what he sees as her lack of conservative bona fides. “Each main voter in America is aware of that electability is codeword for reasonable,” he mentioned.
The Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee, Home Republicans’ marketing campaign arm, declined to touch upon the race, citing its coverage of staying out of aggressive primaries.
Democrats, nevertheless, are gleeful concerning the intra-GOP drama. “Katie Arrington – there’s no query about it: A win for her advantages us,” mentioned Trav Robertson, chair of the South Carolina Democratic Occasion.
Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician and Democratic candidate hoping to show the seat blue once more, has proven indicators of traction. She raised over $500,000 in her first two months on the marketing campaign path.
Robertson can also be optimistic that Mace will emerge weaker from the first in opposition to Arrington.
“Nancy Mace is susceptible on each fronts,” mentioned Robertson, referring to critics on each Mace’s left and proper. “She’s tried to have her cake and eat it, too.”
Different observers preserve that the GOP-dominated state legislature’s gerrymandering of the district to make it extra Republican assures the celebration management of the seat anyway. The district’s new boundaries exclude closely Democratic downtown Charleston and embody extra conservative rural communities additional inland.
The brand new, extra conservative boundaries “make a big distinction” for Republicans in what was successfully a swing seat beforehand, mentioned a South Carolina GOP operative who shouldn't be aligned with both candidate however requested anonymity for skilled causes.
Within the meantime, Mace has been attempting her greatest to tune out the nationwide discourse about Trump and make the case that her pragmatism is an effective match for the district.
She takes delight in sponsoring laws that handed the Democratic-controlled Home, together with a invoice with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) giving the federal authorities higher flexibility to assign staff to expertise and cyber-security-related duties. And in a nod to her district’s giant inhabitants of army veterans, Mace touts her work passing an modification to the protection spending invoice that extends faculty tuition help advantages to Gold Star households.
Residents of the Lowcountry “march to the beat of our personal drum,” she mentioned. “We would like somebody who’s going to work arduous and ship, and I’m doing every thing I mentioned I used to be going to do.”
Whilst she has elicited Trump’s ire, Mace’s strategy has received her the assist of some native elected officers, together with Hilton Head Island Mayor John McCann, a self-described conservative, who mentioned he plans to vote for her.
“Nancy has executed an terrible lot for the neighborhood,” he informed HuffPost. “I'd warning individuals to be cautious of voting for anyone they don’t actually know.”
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