South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace has changed her position on transgender rights, rebranding herself from moderate Republican to MAGA culture warrior. In the end, it didn’t help President Donald Trump win support in the South Carolina gubernatorial race. In general terms, the leopard ate her face. After reshaping her political identity around the grievances that animate Trump and his base, she realized that loyalty was a one-way street.
Instead of endorsing Mace in the Republican primary, Trump endorsed South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Pam Evette. “She never wavered, never let me down, and was the only South Carolina gubernatorial candidate to endorse me as soon as I began my 2024 presidential campaign,” Trump said in a post on his social media platforms. society of truth.
Apparently that loyalty mattered more to Trump than Mace’s long-standing efforts to reinvent himself as one of the most visible anti-trans politicians in Congress. Mace used a megaphone outside the Capitol and called LGBTQ+ people “tricky protesters.” She also chased a cisgender woman out of a public restroom under the mistaken belief that she had caught Delaware Representative Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress, to use the women’s restroom.
related: Nancy Mace considers quitting Congress to spread transphobia across South Carolina
During the 2024 Republican presidential primary, Mace initially sought to “stay out of the race” as other Republicans objected to Trump’s nomination. She ultimately endorsed Trump in January 2024. According to This comes after Politico previously suggested that his legacy was “wiped out” by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Her evolution on LGBTQ+ issues is equally dramatic. In 2021, she said CBS News She was “pro-trans rights, pro-LGBTQ.” A year later, she successfully pressured House Republican leadership to restrict bathroom access based on gender assigned at birth, and subsequently introduced legislation that would impose a nationwide bathroom ban targeting transgender people.
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She also abandoned her previous support for marriage equality and embraced increasingly hardline social conservative positions, at one point citing the old “Adam and Steve” slur. In the process, she went from a Trump skeptic to one of his most vocal supporters.
It wasn’t enough.
The political consequences of Trump endorsing Evett over Mace remain unclear. Trump endorsed Mace’s primary Republican candidate, Katie Arrington. in 2022Just watch Mace win the renomination anyway. Two years later, he supported Mace’s re-election as he moved sharply to the right on cultural issues and distanced himself from his previous LGBTQ-friendly positions.
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Still, the last time Trump tried and failed to derail Mace’s political future, he wasn’t president. This time, he will be in charge of the White House. In a recent opinion poll, trafalgar group Evett’s support rose after Trump’s endorsement, and Mace came in fifth in a crowded but competitive field.
Republican voters will decide who to nominate for governor on Tuesday. Following President Trump’s endorsement of Evette, Mace released a statement praising the president, insisting he remains confident in his campaign.
“I have tremendous respect for President Trump and everything he has done for our country and South Carolina. That respect is real and that will not change,” she said. “We have a corrupt system in our country, a broken system, and an establishment that wants to remain in the shadows. It’s been like this for the last 10 years, ever since Pam Evette became president.”
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
