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Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) defeated a major challenger backed by former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, handing Trump one other setback on his quest to punish Republicans who break with him.
Mace, a staunch fiscal conservative, prevailed over Katie Arrington, a former state lawmaker.
Arrington, who served in Trump’s Division of Protection, slammed Mace for voting to certify the 2020 election outcomes and criticizing Trump’s position within the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
With the advantage of a serious fundraising benefit and high-profile endorsements of her personal although, Mace efficiently argued that she was each a “constitutional conservative,” and higher geared up to protect GOP management over the politically various district.
“This speaks to her skill to fundraise, her skill to get her message out to voters,” mentioned Gibbs Knotts, a political scientist on the Faculty of Charleston. “And it’s proof that Republicans had been taken with retaining this seat in Republican arms.”
Mace is now on account of tackle Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, within the common election. Mace is favored to carry the seat, which was redrawn this yr to have a extra conservative voters.
Mace’s win in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District comes on the heels of major outcomes in Georgia that had been equally disappointing for Trump.
However there are limits to the implications of GOP voters’ preferences within the coastal, Lowcountry area the place Republicans are likely to have an unbiased streak.
“Definitely within the first congressional district, the vast majority of the bottom has moved past Trump and is worried about electability,” Knotts mentioned.
Though the make-up of South Carolina’s 1st was extra liberal in 2020, Arrington’s electoral historical past gave Mace ammunition to argue that Arrington was a dangerous guess for Republicans.
In 2018, Arrington ousted then-Rep. Mark Sanford (R) in a major, largely due to Sanford’s outspoken criticism of Trump. She went on to lose the seat to Democrat Joe Cunningham within the common election. Mace unseated Cunningham within the following election cycle.
As well as, Mace, who labored on Trump’s 2016 presidential marketing campaign, struck a cautious stability in her criticism of Trump. Not like Rep. Tom Rice, one other Republican focused by Trump, in a district simply North of Mace’s, Mace didn’t vote to question Trump for his position in fomenting the U.S. Capitol riot. She did, nevertheless, vote to carry former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt for refusing to testify earlier than Congress about his position within the violent occasion.
Mace benefited from the assist of two senior Trump administration officers: Nikki Haley, former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor; and Mick Mulvaney, former Trump chief of employees and South Carolina congressman.
A leaked text-message alternate between Arrington and Mulvaney in March, after Mulvaney endorsed Mace, contributed to a way that Arrington was a flawed candidate. 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, “That you must understand that you simply may be unstable.”
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