By Jessica Holdman and David Wren
SCDailyGazette.com
Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina’s coastal 1st Congressional District became the fifth GOP candidate to enter the 2026 governor’s race Monday, saying she’s running “to hold the line.”
Mace, the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel, officially launched her campaign during an early morning event at her alma mater. She has been teasing an impending bid for months on social media and talking to voters across the state to prepare for an announcement.
“They said stay quiet. I spoke up. They said sit down. I stood up. They said play nice, and I fought back,” Mace told about 100 supporters gathered in the courtyard of Capers Hall at the state’s military college.
“I’m running for governor because South Carolina doesn’t need another empty suit,” she continued. “It needs a governor who will fight for you and your values.”
She pointed to her years at The Citadel as giving her “the courage and discipline I’d need to take on life’s toughest battles,” noting she entered the Corps of Cadets after dropping out of high school at age 17 and initially going to work at Waffle House. She graduated in 1999, three years after The Citadel changed its male-only admission policy for cadets.
“That’s where I learned what it means to hold the line — no matter the pressure, no matter the odds,” she said.
Mace joins an already crowded field for the primary. Republicans who have already announced bids over the last month are Attorney General Alan Wilson, state Sen. Josh Kimbrell of Spartanburg County, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, and most recently, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman of Rock Hill.
Attacks and accusations
While the 47-year-old single mother only just made it official, she has been sniping at the competition, both on social media and in front of voters.
Mace has taken shots at Evette as a “glorified ribbon cutter” who only smiles and waves.
“She’s a nice lady,” Mace wrote on social media in June. “No edge. No guts. No shot.”
But Wilson, who’s in his fourth term as South Carolina’s top prosecutor, has been the primary focus of Mace’s criticism. At the start of the year she began calling Wilson a “do-nothing attorney general.”
Then in February, Mace took to the House floor and accused four men, including her ex-fiancé, of “some of the most heinous crimes against women imaginable” during a nearly hour-long prepared speech.
The congresswoman said she discovered thousands of photos taken with hidden cameras as well as recordings the “predators” made of themselves sexually assaulting women over years. She was among the victims.
The State Law Enforcement Division confirmed after her speech that it was investigating at least one of the men for assault, harassment and voyeurism. The investigation started Dec. 14, 2023, after SLED was contacted by U.S. Capitol Police.
Mace also accused Wilson of not addressing the crimes against her and other women.
All four men accused have denied the accusations and one has sued for libel and defamation.
Wilson said neither he nor anyone in his office had any knowledge of the accusations until her speech. It also is not the attorney general’s job to start a police investigation, his office said in a statement.
Since then, Mace has sued one of the other men for defamation. And a woman, identified as Jane Doe, who says she was a victim of three of the men has filed her own civil suit.
All of those lawsuits are ongoing.
Mace’s political career
Mace unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2014. She placed fifth in that seven-way GOP primary, which Graham won without needing a runoff.
In January 2018, she won a special election to the South Carolina House representing parts of Charleston and Berkeley counties. She replaced a GOP legislator who resigned amid a yearslong Statehouse corruption investigation.
In 2020, Mace ousted one-term Democrat Joe Cunningham for the 1st congressional seat, flipping the district back into Republican control. The district was then redrawn as part of the Legislature’s redistricting process following the 2020 census to favor a Republican and Mace easily won re-election with more than 58% of the vote.
Mace won her last GOP primary with the endorsement of President Donald Trump. But during her early days in Congress, the two had a rocky relationship.
Mace condemned Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and was among House Republicans who voted to impeach him in the aftermath. In her first re-election bid, Trump backed her GOP challenger, though Mace ultimately won that primary.
She’s since become one of Trump’s most fervent allies.
“I think that anyone that wants to run statewide or any election, really, in 2026 or 2028 beyond, will need the President’s support,” Mace previously told reporters.
A firebrand
Her first campaign ad touts her “firebrand” reputation and includes Trump calling her “a fighter.” On Monday morning, she didn’t directly talk about Trump, but her fiery speech focused on his policies, including immigration.
She promised to fine businesses that hire immigrants living in the U.S. illegally $1,000 a day and work closely with federal immigration officers to round up “illegals who are flooding our state.
“Anyone who is here illegally will get deported immediately,” Mace said.
She promised to sign a “bathroom bill” into law, saying “mentally ill men don’t belong in women’s spaces.” She didn’t give specifics. But South Carolina already has such a law for K-12 public schools, which remains in place pending a final ruling on a challenge in federal court.
She also promised to rid libraries of what she termed “pornography” and ban the use of pronouns in classrooms.
“I want kids coming home with A’s and B’s not they and them,” she said.
State law already restricts children’s access to sexual books in public libraries, as per a state budget directive proposed by Kimbrell, one of her GOP primary opponents. A separate state regulation in effect since June 2024 bars books with sexual conduct from public school libraries and classrooms. The latest decisions by the State Board of Education brought to 21 the total number of books librarians have been required to remove from shelves.
Her message resonated with supporters at the 7:30 a.m. event, many of them waving “Hold the Line” signs or wearing “Get Maced” stickers.
“I’m a sixth-generation Charlestonian and I’d like to see a woman in the governor’s office,” said Francis Beylotte. “Men in South Carolina have messed it up forever. … I think she has the character and experience now. She’s paid her dues, and it’s justified.”
In 2010, then state Rep. Nikki Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, became South Carolina’s first female and first minority governor. Her departure in 2017 to become Trump’s first United Nations ambassador put then-Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster in the governor’s office. Having won two full terms since, McMaster is South Carolina longest-serving elected governor. He can’t seek a third.
“We need change in South Carolina,” added Jenson Estey of Daniel Island. “Kind of like President Trump — change up the norms.”
Mace was introduced by Kaitlyn Czuar, whose 10-year-old son Tanner was one of three people hit by a car during a May 1 hit-and-run on Sullivan’s Island. Mace awarded Tanner the Congressional Patriot Award for his courage in the wake of the incident.
Kaitlin Czuar said Mace is “someone who understands that protecting families and defending children isn’t political – it’s a priority.”
Czuar said Mace “notices people. She hears them and she stands with them. She’s a trailblazer and a servant leader who puts South Carolina families first.”
More controversy
Mace has made headlines for her conflicts with multiple transgender people.
It began with the election last November of Delaware’s Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress. Mace introduced a resolution to ban transgender women from using women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol and House office buildings, later seeking to expand that to all federal property.
She was then criticized for using a slur to the LGBTQ community during a House Oversight Committee hearing in February.
In April, Mace got in a conflict with a transgender student at the University of South Carolina when the student asked Mace to apologize for using the word “tranny” during an April event hosted by USC’s chapter of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that advocates for conservative viewpoints on high school and college campuses across the country.
Following that exchange, an Upstate transgender woman threatened on social media to kill Mace. The woman was arrested and charged with threatening the life of a public official. That case is still pending.
Town hall series announced
Ahead of officially launching her campaign, Mace also announced a statewide series of speaking engagements that her team is calling “the Mother of All Town Halls,” scheduled to start in Myrtle Beach on Wednesday.
“No questions off limits, no topics too tough,” Mace’s spokeswoman Sydney Long said in a statement to NBC affiliate WCBD News 2. “She’ll be traveling across South Carolina to speak directly with residents.”
Mace has previously been criticized for not holding in-person town halls, including a profanity-laden conflict with a man in an Ulta Beauty store who questioned her for her lack of events.
Jessica Holdman writes about the economy, workforce and higher education. Before joining the SC Daily Gazette, she was a business reporter for The Post and Courier. S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
David Wren has been a business, government and investigative reporter for more than 40 years, most of that time in South Carolina. He previously worked for The Post and Courier covering the Port of Charleston, Boeing and advanced manufacturing for more than a decade.
