DANIEL ISLAND, S.C. — Rep. Nancy Mace is no stranger to intraparty strife. Now her role in a major Republican battle last year — the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker — is complicating her primary on Tuesday.
Mace, who is both a candidate for her third term and her own campaign manager, has drawn the ire of the highest ranks of Republicans in her few years in Washington. In 2022, that was former President Donald Trump – although they have since patched things up. A year later, she voted in historic fashion for a speaker of the House of Representatives from her own party.
In fact, McCarthy is the first thing Mace points to when asked about the stakes of her latest political fight against a primary challenger running with McCarthy’s support.
“It’s about revenge,” Mace told NBC News in an interview at her campaign headquarters on Daniel Island. “It’s also about honesty and integrity. And my vote to impeach Kevin McCarthy was about trust.”
Mace says she doesn’t regret the vote.
For his part, McCarthy has said his support of Republican candidates who challenge some of the “crazy eight,” as he calls the Republicans who voted against him, has nothing to do with political vendetta. Sources close to McCarthy indicate that he is limited in what he can do immediately, beyond giving money and advice. His spokesman ignored a request for an interview.
But operatives linked to McCarthy are sending a lot of money to these races through outside groups. Tuesday’s challenge to Mace is the first test, followed by House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good’s primary next week in Virginia. Two other anti-McCarthy voters — Reps. Eli Crane of Arizona and Matt Gaetz of Florida — also face primary challengers this summer.
In South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Catherine Templeton said Mace’s vote against McCarthy “absolutely” prompted her to run against Mace. Templeton also supports Trump and served as Secretary of Labor in then-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s administration.
Before submitting her bid, Templeton met with Brian O. Walsh, a Republican Party political strategist and McCarthy ally. But she told The Post and Courier newspaper that she has not spoken to McCarthy “about taking out Congressman Mace, but I have asked him to help raise money.” McCarthy contributed to Templeton’s campaign through his leadership PAC.
Yet Templeton also downplayed the former speaker’s role here, speaking between campaign stops in Beaufort.
“Her antics have consequences,” Templeton said of Mace, describing the race as bigger than one action, though clearly tied to that historic vote. “All due respect to Kevin McCarthy, who, I am sure, is a great man: no one pays attention to Kevin McCarthy in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.”
What could grab voters’ attention, however, are the ads.
Three outside groups tied to McCarthy allies — American Prosperity Alliance, South Carolina Patriots PAC and Lowcountry Conservatives — have spent more than $4 million on ads against Mace alone, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking company. However, the congresswoman has also had her own outside cavalry. The Club for Growth Action and one of its affiliated groups spent $3 million on advertising to boost Mace.
Despite the barrage of outside attacks and the negative attention the McCarthy vote brought here, there are positives to Mace’s campaign. She has Trump’s support, having returned to the fold following criticism of Trump in the wake of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
She told NBC News that “it was an easy decision to support Donald Trump” in 2024 “because we’ve had four years of Joe Biden” — a 180-degree turn from her statement that the Republican Party following the attack on the Capitol should renounce Trump.
And while the speaker’s vote won’t win her friends in D.C., it could broaden her appeal to primary voters at home.
“Part of the reason she’s being challenged now is because she challenged the system,” said South Carolina GOP strategist Dave Wilson, who is not involved in the race. “So it kind of plays into the narrative of, ‘Hey, listen, if you want to find someone who’s willing to go against the system when they need to, then Donald Trump and Nancy Mace are both willing to do that. ‘”
The handful of Republicans facing challenges at home sometimes talk about the McCarthy aspect, Mace admitted. “But I’m a party of one,” she said. “I don’t report to anyone in Washington. I don’t work for anyone. I work for South Carolina.”
She fended off a Trump-backed primary challenger in 2022. This time, “60-40” signs taped to the walls of her campaign headquarters illustrate her hopes to pacify naysayers by earning far more than the 50% needed to win the Republican primary. and avoid a redundancy. A third candidate, Marine veteran Bill Young, is running in the GOP primary, meaning a runoff is possible.
“Everyone leaves me for dead, right?” Mace said, thinking about the ways her own party came at her. “Every election they say she’s gone. It’s always, ‘she’s never going to make it,’ and then we do it. I want to win bigger on Tuesday night than ever before because I want to send a message to Washington that voters don’t care about DC”
Ali Vitali and Kyle Stewart reported from Daniel Island, and Bridget Bowman from Washington, DC
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
