Nancy Mace lost the South Carolina governor’s race. Her legacy of failure runs deeper.

Nancy Mace’s political career is likely over and will almost certainly be quickly forgotten. But the South Carolina Republican had the chance five years ago to create an enduring legacy by risking her office to steadfastly oppose Donald Trump’s “big lie” and self-coup attempt after he lost the 2020 election. Instead, she chose a squishy middle path between standing up for her country’s democratic legacy and pleasing the deranged boss of her party. And that path led her nowhere.

Mace chose not to run for a fifth term in the House so she could pursue the top job in the Palmetto State’s government, but after failing to qualify for the runoff in the South Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary Tuesday, the odds of her political ambitions reaching any higher have dimmed considerably. Though he didn’t attack her by name as he did with former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Trump endorsed one of Mace’s primary challengers after she was one of four Republicans who signed a discharge petition forcing a vote to release the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files in 2025. 

This wasn’t the first time Mace stood up to Trump. On Jan. 6, 2021, she published an op-ed in The Post and Courier before Trump incited a MAGA mob, in which she wrote, “Today, I will solemnly cast my vote to certify the results of the Electoral College,” adding, “If Congress ever had the power to singularly throw out the Electoral College, we would set a dangerous precedent that the ruling class can disenfranchise millions of voters across the country. Does anyone really want to give Nancy Pelosi this kind of power? Certifying the results is the only way to preserve our republic and our Constitution. We must follow this course, even when we don’t like the outcome. Even when we hate the outcome.”

After Trump supporters’ violence on Jan. 6 was finally subdued, Mace went even further, telling CNN, “I hold him accountable for the events that transpired for the attack on our Capitol,” and that “everything that he’s worked for … his entire legacy, was wiped out yesterday.”

She added, “And we’ve got to start over.”

But when Mace had the chance to vote to impeach Trump a week after the riot, she demurred, questioning the “constitutionality” of the impeachment process for an outgoing president and lamenting “violence on both sides of the aisle.” 

A closer glance at her Jan. 6 op-ed shows her spreading a whole lot of baseless “big lie” innuendo: “Is there evidence of voting irregularities and voter fraud in multiple states? Yes.”

Mace then spent the next several years as a MAGA-coded culture warrior, taking on Trump’s political targets — especially transgender people — as her own. But her Epstein files rebellion seems to have been the last straw for Trump.

It’s a shame, because what this country needs most in June 2026 — just as it did in January 2021 — is Republican lawmakers and conservative thought leaders plainly rejecting Trump’s thoroughly debunked stories about a massive conspiracy of election fraud across multiple states. Instead, the most powerful and influential voices are spreading democracy-eroding falsehoods — because they can’t believe that 2000s-era reality TV show villain Spencer Pratt didn’t finish higher than third as a Republican in the Los Angeles mayoral primary.

Trump crashed out in an interview last weekend with “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker as he ranted about fictitious voter fraud in California. Vice President JD Vance — infamous for knowingly spreading racist lies about immigrants for political purposes — said the situation in California “seems pretty shady to me.” House Speaker Mike Johnson said California’s vote-counting process “stinks to high heaven,” adding, “I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.”