How Nancy Mace survived Trump’s wrath in an ugly bitter GOP primary

Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina has brought a combination of courage and cowardice to the U.S. House of Representatives, standing up to the MAGA movement at times but groveling to former President Donald Trump in a truly pathetic and embarrassing video filmed outside of Trump Tower in New York City. But that video, for all the ridicule and mockery it has inspired, may have helped save her reelection campaign.

On Tuesday, June 14, the 44-year-old Mace defeated Trump-backed MAGA challenger Katie Arrington by 8% in a GOP primary in South Carolina’s 1^st Congressional District. And Mace will be taking on Democratic nominee Annie Andrews in the general election.

Mace is far from a Never Trumper, but after the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Mace criticized Trump vehemently — although she didn’t vote to impeach him, only censure him. Furious with Mace for calling him out, Trump angrily railed against her for months.

Rep. Nancy Mace on the Impeachment of President Trumpyoutu.be

Mace also angered MAGA extremists in her party when, in November 2021, she condemned Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado for hateful anti-Islam remarks aimed at progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — which infuriated far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Mace wasn’t shy about standing up to Greene, and the two of them exchanged insults during a bitter, ugly feud.

On February 10, Mace became the butt of jokes when she posted, on Twitter, a video that showed her praising Trump and groveling pathetically with New York City’s Trump Tower in the background. The video didn’t impress Trump, who continued to rail against her and endorsed Arrington.

Trump, during the primary, slammed Mace as “nasty, disloyal, and bad for the Republican Party.” But after she defeated Arrington, Trump had a surprising response. Instead of falsely accusing Mace of stealing the election — which is the type of thing he frequently does — or coming up with a nonsense voter fraud conspiracy theory, Trump congratulated her.

On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote, “Katie Arrington was a long shot but ran a great race and way over performed. Congrats to Nancy Mace, who should easily be able to defeat her Democrat opponent!”

Journalist Elaine Godfrey, in an article published by The Atlantic on June 15, recalls how pathetic Mace’s February 2022 video was.

“The video was the very definition of cringe,” Godfrey recalls. “One day after Donald Trump endorsed her Republican primary opponent, freshman Rep. Nancy Mace filmed a two-minute clip of herself outside the shiny black facade of Trump Tower in Manhattan — approximately 800 miles from her South Carolina district — to remind her followers that she was still loyal to the former president…. The move looked desperate because it was. Mace had been extremely critical of Trump after the Capitol attack on January 6, but blowback from the MAGA right, and her fellow Republican lawmakers, had reminded her to tread more carefully.”

In the video, Mace claimed that when Trump was in office, “America was stronger all around the world, and quite frankly, freedom and democracy was stronger all around the world.” But 14 days after Mace posted that video, Russian forces, on orders from President Vladimir Putin — who Trump openly admired — launched a brutal invasion of Ukraine, causing millions of refugees to flea to other countries and creating the worst military conflict in Europe since World War 2.”

Godfrey reports that according to some Republicans, Mace’s victory shows that “GOP lawmakers must be loyal to Trump, but maybe not unfailingly so.” Republican strategist Chip Felkel, for example, told Godfrey that Mace’s win “shows you don’t have to kiss the ring,” adding, “She polished the ring — she didn’t kiss it.”

“Since her election in 2020,” Godfrey writes, “Mace has offered a study in Trump-era political shape-shifting. During her campaign, Mace, 44, did not shy away from her devotion to Trump. She had worked on his campaign in 2016, and she promised to be his ally in Congress — which is why it was so surprising when she emerged as one of the most vocal GOP lawmakers condemning him for his misleading rhetoric ahead of the January 6 insurrection.”

On January 7, 2021, Mace told CNN that Trump’s “entire legacy was wiped out yesterday.” But she later toned her criticism of Trump way down.

Godfrey argues that Mace’s “tightrope walk on Trump” isn’t the only thing that saved her 2022 campaign.

“The First Congressional District of South Carolina, which contains Charleston, is relatively moderate…. Charleston County was one of the only two counties in the state that didn’t back Trump in the 2016 primary, and the Democrat Joe Cunningham won the district in 2018,” Godfrey explains. “Mace, as the incumbent, also had name-ID and institutional advantages. An even more significant factor, local strategists argue, is that Arrington, a former member of the South Carolina State House, was a weak candidate. Voters had already seen her lose a general election to Cunningham in 2018, and Mace’s campaign had twice as much cash on hand.”