Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina has launched a campaign for the state’s gubernatorial primary in 2026.
She released a video announcement on Monday including a graphic that reads, “Nancy Mace for Governor.” She also posted the graphic on social media.
Mace is currently serving her third term in Congress. Once a Donald Trump critic, she has since become an ally of the US president. Her video announcement focused heavily on her pro-Trump bonafides, featuring a clip of the president calling Mace a “fighter.”
She is set to face a former prosecutor in the Republican primary whom she said bungled an investigation into her ex-fiancé who she accused earlier this year of abusing her.
Mace, 47, was the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel, South Carolina’s military college in 1999. She first entered public office in 2018 as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives before winning election to Congress in 2020 after flipping a Democratic district.
In 2021, Mace was one of seven House Republicans who signed a letter saying Congress did not have the authority to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Trump’s favor, and she was highly critical of Trump’s role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol that same year.
“I want to be a new voice for the Republican Party, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve spoken out so strongly against the president, against these QAnon conspiracy theorists that led us in a constitutional crisis,” Mace said in 2021. “It’s just wrong and we’ve got to put a stop to it.”
She described the impeachment process against Trump, however, as flawed and rushed and voted against impeaching him for his role in inciting an insurrection.
As a consequence of her initial words against him, Trump endorsed a primary challenger to Mace’s 2022 congressional campaign, which she ultimately won.
Since then, she has emerged as a fierce ally of the president, especially on issues pertaining to contemporary culture wars. Trump and Mace endorsed each other during their respective 2024 campaigns.
Although she had as recently as 2023 described herself as “pro transgender rights,” last year, she introduced a resolution to ban transgender women from using the women’s restrooms at the Capitol. She said the resolution was crafted to target then-incoming Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, who is the first transgender member of Congress.
Mace was criticized for using an anti-transgender slur during a House Oversight Committee hearing earlier this year.
During a floor speech in February, Mace accused her ex-fiancé of physical assault, rape and sex trafficking against her and other women — accusing him and several other men by name on the floor. She accused the state’s top prosecutor, Alan Wilson, of slow-walking an investigation into her ex.
In a statement after Mace’s floor speech, Wilson’s office said her description of his handling of the investigation was “categorically false.”
She will now face Wilson in the South Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary. Wilson announced his campaign for the post in late June.
The Associated Press contributed.
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