Welcome to Trail Mix, a fun but nutritious snack for your election news diet. See something interesting on the trail? Email me at jake.lahut@thedailybeast.com.
This week, we get to the bottom of perhaps the strangest VP chatter of the 2024 cycle thus far. Plus, DeSantis returns to New Hampshire, and an up-and-coming Democrat who floated a challenge to President Biden gets an intra-party foe of his own.
Live by the Mace, die by the Mace
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When former President Donald Trump lined up his top supporters at a hot and sticky rally in South Carolina’s Lowcountry two weeks ago, one of the state’s most visible GOP politicians was notably not in attendance.
Despite her ubiquity on TV and social media, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) wasn’t even an intro speaker.
In a sense, Mace’s absence wasn’t surprising. In 2021, her first year in office, she went from harshly criticizing Trump over Jan. 6 to groveling in a self-filmed video in front of Trump Tower after the former president endorsed her 2022 primary challenger, Katie Arrington.
A week after the South Carolina rally, Mace’s vote to end Kevin McCarthy’s speakership—and her confusing justification for it—may have obliterated whatever relationships she had left in the GOP.
Yet, Mace has been privately telling Republicans that she has a real shot at being named Trump’s vice presidential nominee for the 2024 election, according to six Republicans familiar with the discussions.
Three South Carolina Republicans also said they’ve heard about Mace floating herself as a VP pick, dating back to the early summer.
Given their history, the idea sounds absurd to people who know Trump and Mace. A source close to Trump said the former president “absolutely hates Nancy Mace,” while a former senior aide to the congresswoman put it more bluntly.
“I would see Trump pick [Mike] Pence before he picks Mace,” the former staffer said.
Mace declined to comment for this story.
The two Republicans share something in common that could help explain some of the veep chatter: Chris LaCivita, the top Trump 2024 campaign adviser who happens to be Mace’s former political strategist.
After Mace’s 2020 victory over former Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC), LaCivita wrote a blog post for FP1 Strategies, where he used to be a consultant, titled: “Nancy Mace: The Most Daring & Successful Tactic of 2020.”
“Nancy Mace is in Congress today because she had the courage of her own convictions and used her knowledge of her district to guide her decision-making rather than heeding the warnings of D.C. campaign operatives,” LaCivita gushed in the post, a copy of which The Daily Beast reviewed.
Now, some Republicans credit LaCivita with helping Mace emerge as an unlikely defender of the former president in the depths of his legal quagmire. She’s also been a frequent advocate of Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, launched this summer.
“He put her name out there,” a source familiar with the Mace VP discussions told The Daily Beast.
Noting that Trump endorsed a challenger to Mace in 2022, the source continued that the former president “can’t stand her” and “has never really trusted her.”
Despite Mace disavowing Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection, and given her ties to fellow South Carolinians Nikki Haley and Tim Scott in the 2024 field—which she’s described as a “love triangle”—LaCivita has been seen as a Mace ally in Trumpworld when few others have been willing to go to bat for her.
LaCivita denied pushing Mace as a veep candidate.
“I was a former consultant for Rep. Mace—but it ends there,” LaCivita said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Any suggestion or rumor that I have been advocating for anyone as VP is complete horseshit. The pick of a vice presidential candidate is President Trump’s, and President Trump’s alone.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung also responded to the reporting, saying, “None of these so-called sources know what they’re talking about. If they spent half the time spreading untrue stories as they do on their mental health, they’d be much happier people.”
Trump has been considering several high-profile women to be his 2024 running mate, as The Daily Beast reported in January—among them Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)—but sources close to the Trump campaign and Mace’s own staff don’t even think she rates as a long shot.
The former Mace aide, who requested anonymity to detail private discussions, also said that the congresswoman’s antipathy toward Trump was clear behind the scenes.
“She would absolutely dump on Trump,” they said, adding “there’s no chance in hell” Mace will get the nod for VP.
“She despises him,” the former Mace aide continued. “She would call him an idiot and other sorts of words… She is not a friend of Trump, and Trump is not a friend of hers.”
Although Mace has another key connection to the Trump campaign in Austin McCubbin, her 2022 campaign manager and now Trump’s state director in South Carolina, her feelings about the former president are not a secret to GOP insiders.
While she has sometimes positioned herself as a moderate, in voting to oust McCarthy, Mace has aligned herself with Trumpworld figures like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Steve Bannon. Since her pivotal vote, Mace has tried to tap their grassroots supporters for donations by casting herself as an enemy of the establishment. Many Republican officials and operatives are indeed furious with Mace, but mostly because they believe she is only motivated by attention.
Their case was not weakened when she walked into a GOP conference on Tuesday wearing a shirt with a literal scarlet letter to make a statement on “being demonized for my vote and for my voice.”
A DeSantis sighting
CONCORD, New Hampshire—Around noon on Thursday, New Hampshire supporters of Ron DeSantis jostled for a clear glimpse of a rare sight: Ron DeSantis.
As the Florida governor prepared to arrive at the Secretary of State’s office for the classic photo op of signing up for the primary ballot, Steven Bogert, a GOP state representative, made a request of a Daily Beast reporter inside the packed room.
“Excuse me,” Bogert said. “Could we switch spots so he can see me?”
In another political universe, DeSantis might have been a constant fixture in New Hampshire, traveling from town to town to win over the state’s independent-minded voters as he closed in on an upset of Trump.
Instead, DeSantis’ campaign is fading in the polls, running out of cash, and banking it all on Iowa, where the January caucus is the first contest of the primary calendar. In the latest New Hampshire polls, the governor currently sits in fifth place.
The governor’s trip to New Hampshire to officially get on the ballot, then, ended up being a reflection of how little even his most ardent supporters see of him—bad optics in a state where voters expect to see presidential candidates regularly.
Before his trip on Thursday, DeSantis hadn’t set foot in New Hampshire since August.
There were plenty of ideas floating around among DeSantis supporters in New Hampshire about how he could maximize his long-awaited return to the state. Ranging from having the Florida governor go apple-picking to participating in a town’s “pumpkin regatta,” the goal was simply to make the candidate seem relatable.
However, the trip wound up being a series of quick in-and-outs for DeSantis. And instead of connecting with voters over seasonal activities, the governor got in a spat with a declared supporter over Israel at a stop in Littleton. By the time it was over, the man was not a supporter anymore, telling DeSantis, “You had my vote, but you don't now.”
The Florida governor’s allies in New Hampshire have resigned themselves to the feeling that their candidate is doing the bare minimum.
“If you don’t talk to the voters, you can’t sell DeSantis,” a DeSantis supporter and seasoned New Hampshire presidential primary campaign veteran told The Daily Beast.
Instead, the governor has been getting more face time with state representatives and other local bigwigs—either those who’ve endorsed him or those from whom the campaign is seeking support—on a tight schedule with little time for interactions with voters.
Even state representatives offered similar advice.
“If I was in his position, I’d go to where all the people are, kiss some babies,” Bogert, the DeSantis endorser eager for a line of sight, told The Daily Beast.
Doing the exact opposite of DeSantis is Nikki Haley, who has already been to all nine counties in the state, hit the rural north months before DeSantis’ first visit on Thursday, and made sure to take as many voter questions as possible at her events.
With Haley surpassing DeSantis in the latest New Hampshire polls and finally beginning to gain on him nationally, early DeSantis loyalists are beginning to feel tempted by the South Carolinian’s momentum.
The DeSantis supporter pointed to New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s endorsement as a crucial goal for both DeSantis and Haley, widely considered to be the only endorsement that will matter come primary night, and the “Market Basket voters” that would come with it, referring to the beloved regional grocery store chain.
“The Market Basket voter right now is split. You either have a hardcore, batshit crazy Trump person, or the rest who are just praying for someone to emerge” as an alternative to the former president, the New Hampshire Republican said.
“DeSantis was mine,” they continued, “and he has me saying, ‘You should just stay in Florida and shut up.’”
The Dean scream
Since Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) began making the case that President Biden should face a primary challenge—and floating the idea of running himself—neither possibility has yet come to pass.
Instead, a different primary effort is emerging: one to push Phillips himself out of office.
In recent weeks, Ron Harris—a member of the Democratic National Committee’s executive board and a fixture in Minnesota Democratic politics—has begun putting together a team to run in Phillips’ left-leaning suburban Minneapolis congressional seat, no matter what the incumbent decides to do.
On Friday morning, Harris officially launched his campaign. “As our congressman contemplates seeking higher office, I’m ready to step up to ensure our voices are heard, our community is represented, and our district gets the resources we need,” Harris said in his announcement.
There’s little doubt that many committed Democrats want to see Phillips gone. And there’s little doubt as to why.
“The dam has already burst,” Michael Kapp, a DNC member from California and a friend of Harris, told The Daily Beast. “Dean Phillips has betrayed this party, this president, and there absolutely needs to be a primary challenge.”
The third-term congressman, who has been a loyal vote for the president in Congress, spent the summer telling anyone who would listen that Biden was too old and unpopular to mount a successful campaign against Donald Trump. He cast himself as the rare Democrat who was willing to say publicly what many only admitted privately.
“I want him to preserve his legacy, not to compromise it,” Phillips told The Washington Post in July. “And this is exactly why I’m asking—pass the torch, open the stage.”
An ultra-wealthy entrepreneur and heir to a Minnesota liquor dynasty, Phillips has never fully ruled out the idea of running against Biden, if only to force the incumbent president to prove his mettle with a warm-up contest. A recent Politico story, which amplified chatter about a Phillips campaign focused on New Hampshire, revved up the speculation yet again.
It is true that plenty of Democrats share Phillips’ concerns. But many believe, at this point, the risks of ditching Biden far outweigh the risks of sticking with him. Phillips’ comments, which drove the news cycle for weeks and got him booked on seemingly every major cable show, began to be seen by Democrats as more selfish than selfless.
“As it’s gone on and on and on, it has started to leave a bitter taste in a lot of folks’ mouths,” said Quentin Wathum-Ocama, a Minnesotan who serves alongside Harris on the DNC executive committee and is also president of the Young Democrats of America. “It feels very much like this is more about him and his personal ambition.”
Already, Phillips has faced consequences. In early October, he resigned his leadership position in House Democrats’ messaging arm, citing his difference of opinion with colleagues on Biden.
It’s likely Harris would get support from the highest echelons of the national party in a primary fight. In an eyebrow-raising moment at the DNC’s fall meeting last week, party chairman Jaime Harrison spoke and addressed Harris, who was sitting next to him, and pointedly declared: “I am with him every step of the way—whatever he decides to do!”
Kapp, meanwhile, shared that it was his “understanding” that the “Biden campaign will be supportive if Ron decides to jump into this race,” though he declined to provide further details.
When asked about Harris’ potential challenge by The Daily Beast, Phillips sounded unconcerned—with perhaps a twinge of Minnesota Nice—while, interestingly, commenting on the primary from his perspective as a voter.
“When I say ‘Everyone’s Invited!’, I mean it,” the congressman said in a text message. “I have known Mr. Harris for many years, and he has my warm welcome if he enters the primary. But as an MN-03 voter myself, I prefer candidates who already live in the district and represent it with great character and competency, like Sen. Kelly Morrison and Rep. Zack Stephenson.” (Harris grew up in the district, lives close to it now, and is moving back ahead of a run, according to his team.)
Asked to provide an update on his thinking on a presidential run, Phillips didn’t respond.
Campaign lit
The Gen-Z influencers who helped rescue Ken Paxton. A band of MAGA twentysomethings led by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale are gaining—you guessed it—influence in Texas, Robert Downen of the Texas Tribune reports.
Santos in a bottle. Roger Sollenberger broke down the indictment against Rep. George Santos (R-NY), including the intriguing details not included among the 23 separate counts.
Youngkin cash wars. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is staking his reputation on this November’s legislative elections in the commonwealth, and Democrats are trying to scuttle his GOP presidential ambitions before they take off, Jake Lahut reports.
Ohio, the heart of it all. In a dispatch from the Buckeye State, Grace Panetta of The 19th unpacks the dicey future of abortion rights in Ohio ahead of their Issue 1 ballot referendum on Nov. 7.
Roger Sollenberger and Zachary Petrizzo contributed reporting for this article.
