Donald Trump deemed two South Carolina GOP members of Congress as apostates of the MAGA movement.
In Tuesday’s primary election, Palmetto State Republican voters decided to keep one and give another the boot.
In January 2021, Rep. Tom Rice was perhaps the most surprising Republican to vote in favor of Trump’s impeachment. On Tuesday night, he lost his seat to state Sen. Russell Fry, who was endorsed by Trump and cleared 50 percent of the vote in a crowded field.
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But further south, in Charleston, Rep. Nancy Mace—who Trump attacked as a “terrible” lawmaker—survived a primary challenge from his handpicked candidate, state Rep. Katie Arrington, who conceded late Tuesday night.
For Trump, Rice’s defeat is a badly needed boost to his decidedly spotty 2022 campaign to replace Republicans who have crossed him with handpicked loyalists. Just two weeks ago across the border in Georgia, Trump-backed candidate David Perdue flamed out embarrassingly in his effort to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp.
Fry’s outright victory is an especially sweet one for Team Trump. Rice is the first of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s second impeachment to be defeated in a primary. With four of those 10 choosing to retire, five others still face competitive primary or general elections.
The two lawmakers’ strategies to overcome the might of Trump’s political apparatus couldn’t have been more different.
The fact Mace had a primary challenge at all demonstrates just how low the bar is for Trump to turn on a former favorite. She did not vote to impeach Trump, or vote in favor of any of the committees to investigate Jan. 6.
But Mace was once vocal in her criticism of Trump’s actions on the 6th and has, at times, pushed back on his singularly immense influence over the direction of the party. Later, she did vote to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for not cooperating with that investigation.
Those are far lighter sins to the MAGA base than Rice’s vote to impeach. But Mace still embarked on a tortured campaign to win back his supporters.
In February 2022, the day after Trump endorsed Arrington, Mace went to New York City and filmed a video pledging her full support for the man who had just torched her as an “absolutely terrible candidate.” The strange stunt prompted derision from across the political spectrum.
Faced with intense backlash—including death threats—from constituents in his heavily pro-Trump district, Rice did not really back away from his impeachment vote. Though he has reiterated his support for the ex-president in the 2020 election, he recently excoriated him as the “most spiteful and petty and vengeful” person he’d ever met.
Rice seemed to be at peace with the possibility of losing. In the days before the election, he told ABC News that if he lost his seat because of his impeachment vote, he’d “wear it like a badge.”
