Nancy Mace is trying to cement her hold on her US House seat in South Carolina

COLUMBIA, SC — South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace is trying to solidify her hold on her seat in a state that hasn’t minded sending people back to Congress for decades.

There were questions about whether Mace’s attention-seeking personality and impatience and willingness to contradict his party’s organization could be a passion. But so far it has been embraced by the first coastal district.

Mace handed the seat back to Republicans in 2020 after a stunning upset of Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Cunningham. She ran against a GOP challenger backed by former President Donald Trump in 2022 and managed to win surprisingly easily — this time with Trump’s support — in the 2024 Republican primary without a runoff.

Her Republican colleagues in the South Carolina General Assembly also did her a favor, redrawing the district and sending traditionally Democratic precincts in and around downtown Charleston into the state’s only majority-minority district. Under the old 2020 map, Mace won less than 51% of the vote. With the new maps in 2022, she received more than 56%.

Mace’s Democratic challenger when voting closes Tuesday is businessman and former International African American Museum CEO Michael Moore. His campaign struggled to gain momentum, and Mace barely acknowledged that he was in the race.

Moore said Mace is more concerned with national attention and pet causes like legalizing marijuana than helping people in her district. She joined seven far-right Republicans to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Mace said it’s her way of fighting for voters in her eclectic district, which includes century-old neighborhoods near Charleston and massive Beaufort retirement developments that have moved to South Carolina.

A win Tuesday, and Mace is on track to become a fixture in South Carolina’s U.S. House delegation — like Democrat Jim Clyburn, who is running for a 17th term, or Republican Joe Wilson, who is seeking a 12th mandate.

Wilson faces Democrat David Robinson II in the 2nd District, which includes suburban areas around Columbia and west and south toward Aiken.

Robinson is a US Army veteran who enlisted after the 9/11 attacks and is a missing persons advocate after his son disappeared in the Arizona desert.

Wilson serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. He is also remembered as the congressman who shouted “You lie!” to Barack Obama during the president’s joint address to Congress on health care in 2009.

Clyburn has represented the state’s 6th District since it was drawn in 1992 to have a majority of minority voters. This year, his Republican challenger is attorney Duke Buckner, in the sprawling district that is bounded by areas around Charleston, Beaufort and Columbia.

Clyburn is a key member of the US House Democratic leadership, and his endorsement of President Joe Biden just ahead of South Carolina’s 2020 presidential primary sparked his longtime friend’s path to victory.

Perhaps no challenger has worked harder than Democrat Kathryn Harvey in the 4th District that includes Greenville and Spartanburg and has sent a Republican to Washington in every election since 1992.

Harvey has raised a surprising amount of money and traveled throughout the district, while U.S. Rep. William Timmons has spent most of his time out of state campaigning for Republicans in races he believes are more competitive, in while trying to ensure that the US House remains in the country. GOP control.

For his second straight election, Timmons had to win a tough Republican primary in which his opponent tried to paint him as a liberal.

Harvey helps nonprofits with marketing, fundraising and leadership.

South Carolina will have at least one new face in the US House. Republican Jeff Duncan has decided not to run for an eighth term in District 3, which is the most Republican in the solidly conservative state.

Sheri Biggs is a nurse and Air National Guard officer, and if she wins Tuesday, she will be only the second Republican woman to run for Congress from South Carolina, after Mace.

Her opponents are Sherwin-Williams paint store manager and Democrat Byron Best of Greenwood and Michael Bedenbaugh of the Alliance Party.

The district in the northwest corner of the state contains several small population centers.

U.S. Rep. Russell Fry is seeking a second term in the 7th District, which stretches from Myrtle Beach to Florence in the northeastern part of the state. Fry unseated a Republican incumbent in 2022 who voted to impeach Trump.

Fry’s challenger is professor Mal Hyman, who calls himself an independent Democrat.

And in the 5th District, Republican U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman is seeking a fourth full term. The district stretches from Rock Hill in Charlotte, North Carolina, the suburbs south and east to Sumter.

The real estate developer takes on Democrat Evangeline Hundley, who has also worked in real estate and construction.