South Carolina loves Donald Trump. In 2016, he rolled through the state’s presidential primary and beat Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz by double-digits. On Tuesday, Trump again showed strength there. This time, however, he met with mixed results.
First, in South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, Russell Fry, a state legislator endorsed by the former president, defeated incumbent Rep. Tom Rice. For Trump, Fry’s win was personal: Rice voted to impeach him in the aftermath of the insurrection.
In return, Rice earned Trump’s ire, and death threats from the former president’s supporters. His loss came as no surprise. Incumbency did not save him.
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Rice remained unrepentant to the end. “I was livid,” Rice said. “I took an oath to protect the Constitution and I did it then and I would do it again tomorrow.”
Elsewhere in South Carolina, Katie Arrington, a former state legislator backed by Trump, conceded her contest with incumbent Rep. Nancy Mace.
Mace had hammered Arrington for losing her security clearance as a civilian at the Pentagon. South Carolina is home to a large number of veterans. That did not deter Trump from backing Arrington—a move that had more to do with his anger at the incumbent than his opinion of her challenger.
Mace’s sin? She offended Trump by voting to certify Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. She also criticized the insurrection. Mace wouldn’t fully embrace the Big Lie even as she voted against impeachment.
On the stump, Mace repeatedly stressed her personal support for Trump, and let his backers know that she still stood with them. The congresswoman swallowed her pride and groveled. On primary night it paid off.
The limitations surrounding Trump’s endorsement were again on display, much as they were in Georgia and Pennsylvania, several weeks ago. In the Peach State, Trump bêtes noires had good nights, with Gov. Brian Kemp sailing to a renomination and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state who rejected Trump’s appeal to just “find 11,780 votes,” avoiding a run-off. Trump’s conduct is also the focus of a special grand jury empaneled by the Fulton County district attorney.
Their wins came after Mehmet Oz only managed to eke out a razor-thin win in Pennsylvania even with Trump’s endorsement. Said differently, Trump still commands the loyalty of the Republican base but not necessarily their votes in intra-party skirmishes. He no longer controls the base—if he ever did.
On the other hand, the hearings held by the House special committee do not appear to have impacted the outcomes in the Palmetto State. Indeed, they were irrelevant.
Significantly, Mace received the active support of Nikki Haley, South Carolina’s former governor and a Trump UN ambassador who finds herself on the “outs” with Trump. In the days before the primary, Haley appeared on the stump with Mace.
Haley’s relationship with her former boss is complicated, to put it mildly. On Jan. 7, 2021, Haley told the Republican National Committee that Trump “was badly wrong with his words.” She added that his “actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.”
Weeks later, Haley told Politico that Trump had “fallen so far”, and that she was “deeply disturbed by what’s happened to him.”
Yet, in the summer of 2021, Jared Kushner’s parents donated to Haley’s political operation, and Charlie Kushner, Jared’s father, predicted Haley would be “the first woman president.”
Then, a few months later, Trump said of Haley, “Well, every time she criticizes me, she uncriticizes me about 15 minutes later.”
Despite her flip-flopping, Haley knows her state and party. Her support carries weight.
Although Trump was again forced to sort through possible narratives, it was a great night for the GOP. In a special election in Texas, Maya Flores appeared poised as of Tuesday evening to turn a blue House seat red.
From the look of things, November is shaping up as a red wave. The Democrats can no longer take the Hispanic vote for granted. Indeed, it may be too late for them to do much of anything.
