Former President Donald Trump sent out congratulations to some of the big GOP winners of the night, including among those he did not endorse. He was celebrating his 76th birthday on Tuesday.

“Mayra Flores is the BIG winner in the Texas Special Election. No Republican has ever won this district. We are all really proud of Mayra. Great things to come!!!” he said in one post on Truth Social.

“Katie Arrington was a long shot but ran a great race and way over performed,” Trump said in another about his preferred candidate. “Congrats to Nancy Mace, who should easily be able to defeat her Democrat opponent!”

“The biggest News of the evening so far is that Russell Fry beat Impeach Master Tom Rice with a Vote of more than 51%, therefore WINNING OUTRIGHT with no need for a run-off,” Trump added in a third post. “Rice only got 24%. Congratulations to Russell on running a great campaign!”

The former president also said: “Many great wins tonight, with more to come!”

Rep. Nancy Mace beat back a Republican primary challenge in South Carolina’s low-country district from a Republican rival, Katie Arrington, who had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Arrington conceded to Mace late Tuesday night after it was clear the incumbent would win more than 50% of the vote and avoid a runoff. The Mace-Arrington Republican primary for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District was defined by Trump and Mace’s criticism of the former president over Jan. 6, in addition to her decision to certify the 2020 Electoral College results.

At the same time, Mace sought to undermine Arrington’s general election electability argument. In 2018, Arrington beat Rep. Mark Sanford in the Republican primary after Trump turned against Sanford, a former South Carolina governor who was then in his second House stint. Arrington went on to lose in the 2018 Democratic wave to Joe Cunningham. But in the conservative district, Cunningham only lasted a single two-year term, losing to Mace in 2020.

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Rep. Tom Rice (R) lost his solidly conservative South Carolina House seat Tuesday after nearly a decade in Congress, which included his vote to impeach former President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 riots.

Although Rice repeated his support for many Trump policies as he campaigned across South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, from Myrtle Beach to the Pee Dee region, he defended his decision to impeach Trump as “the principled stance.”

“My opinion is that our Constitution is too precious to risk,” he said during the district’s five-way Republican debate.

Trump responded by endorsing South Carolina state Rep. Russell Fry, who blasted Rice for his impeachment vote and made allegations of self-enrichment, also slamming the incumbent for his Democratic outreach. In reaction, Rice, a former tax lawyer, focused his hefty war chest on Fry, ripping him as “a tax-and-spender.”

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Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) issued a statement congratulating Mayra Flores on her special election win that flipped Texas’s 34th District from Democrat to Republican, at least for a few months.

“As the first Mexican-born woman elected to Congress, Mayra has sent a resounding message to the Democratic Party in South Texas and across America— Democrats do not own the Hispanic vote. Mayra is the American Dream, and she is a strong example of the historic E-PAC GOP women leading the fight to take back the House and save America,” Stefanik said in a statement Tuesday night.

“I’m excited to work with Mayra in Congress and to help her once again win in the General Election so that she can play a critical role in Republicans’ efforts to stop the Biden Border Crisis and help fix our broken immigration system,” she continued

Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, endorsed Flores.

Rising Republican star Mayra Flores beat out Democratic challenger Dan Sanchez on Tuesday in a special election to finish Rep. Filemon Vela’s (D) current term in South Texas, a competitive congressional seat the GOP believes it can flip for good in November.

With all precincts reporting, Flores was above the 50% mark necessary to avoid a runoff.

The 34th Congressional District race was seen as a gauge of Republicans’ growing popularity in traditionally Democratic South Texas. House Republicans in 2020 did far better than expected with Latino voters there than in previous cycles.

The special election was triggered after Vela accepted a position with Akin Gump, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying and law firm. Prior to his resignation, Vela announced he would not be seeking reelection to the seat he had held since 2013.

Tuesday’s winner will finish Vela’s term, which ends in January. Despite the winner only having about six months in Congress, Republicans wanted to score an early win ahead of November’s matchup, which will determine which candidate will represent the Lone Star State’s neighboring 34th District for a full two-year term.

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A win by Mayra Flores (R) in the special election in Texas’s 34th Congressional District would further narrow the already slim Democratic majority in the House for the last six months of the 117th Congress.

Republican Mayra Flores is currently leading in a special election for Texas’s 34th Congressional District and will likely flip the district red.

Flores was holding at over 49% of the vote while Democrat Dan Sanchez was behind at 44.81%. With 95% of the vote counted, the GOP will likely be able to count this district as a convert in its mission to take back the House majority in November.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R) is currently holding a 10-point lead over her opponent, though it’s still too early to call the race in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District.

With 40% of the votes counted, Mace is sitting at 53%, while Katie Arrington is trailing with 45%.

Mace, like her colleague Rep. Tom Rice (R), is facing a Trump-backed challenger.

A runoff primary election is the best Rep. Tom Rice (R) can hope for as votes are counted in South Carolina’s 7th District.

His Trump-backed opponent, Russell Fry, is currently 20 points ahead, though if he doesn’t end up with 50% of the total, a runoff will be triggered. Fry had about 45% of the vote and Rice had 25% after 35% had been counted. The runoff would be held June 28.

Rice voted with nine other Republicans to impeach former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Incumbent Henry McMaster has won the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary, gearing him up for the chance to become the longest-serving governor in the state’s history.

The Republican Governors Association congratulated McMaster on his victory.

“Good-paying jobs, lower taxes, a booming economy, strong schools, and standing up for law enforcement — that is Gov. Henry McMaster’s first-term legacy in South Carolina,” said RGA Executive Director Dave Rexrode in a statement, adding, “The RGA is confident Gov. McMaster will win reelection and continue to move South Carolina in the right direction.”

McMaster took over the governorship from Nikki Haley when she left to become former President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. McMaster is seeking his second full term.

In an update from last week’s batch of primaries, Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) is pulling ahead of Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayoral race.

Bass is in first place as mail-in votes are counted, leading Caruso by 41% to 38%. The final outcome isn’t expected for several weeks. Caruso and Bass will be the two candidates on the ballot in November, as they are the top two vote getters.

FLORENCE, South Carolina — Former House Speaker Paul Ryan ripped brand-focused “entertainers” posing as lawmakers who are preoccupied with their careers rather than their constituents during a campaign stop for embattled Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC), whom he called a “workhorse.”

“Tom Rice is a loyal man. He is loyal to his constituents. He is loyal to his conscience. He is loyal to our founding principles. He’s loyal to the Constitution,” Ryan told a business-suited crowd seated at a Florence hotel restaurant Wednesday. “That’s why I’m here: because Tom Rice is a man worth fighting for.”

Ryan is in South Carolina‘s 7th Congressional District, which stretches from the Grand Strand strip of beach to the state’s Pee Dee region, to support Rice at the luncheon and a business roundtable.

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Sen. Tim Scott (SC) was uncontested in his Republican primary and is poised to easily win reelection.

Scott won more than 60% of the vote in his two previous Senate elections and has accumulated millions of dollars for his war chest. Three Democratic women are competing for the nomination across the aisle for a chance to face him in the general election.

His ambitions may extend beyond retaining his Senate seat, as he’s been eyed as a possible presidential nominee.

CHARLESTON, South Carolina — The tone and tenor of the Republican race to represent South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District is heating up like the low country’s weather.

Incumbent Rep. Nancy Mace had adopted a stateswoman approach to her June 14 primary. But in her campaign’s closing weeks, Mace has increased her criticism of her Trump-endorsed opponent, scrappy ex-state Rep. Katie Arrington, who has beaten a sitting member in the primary before.

Mace’s rhetoric shift reflects the pressure she is under to respond to Arrington in a newly drawn district that leans Republican — one that Arrington forfeited to former Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham in the 2018 general election. But Mace also has to contend with Republican discontent over her decision to certify the 2020 Election College results and to scrutinize former President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 riots.

Voters, even Arrington supporters, are divided regarding Mace and her challenger’s tone, with the pair’s animosity dating back to their time in South Carolina’s statehouse. Berkeley County retiree Mark Inman, 72, complained that their advertisements, augmented by outside groups and out-of-state money, have taken “things out of context.”

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Republicans believe their luck in Nevada is poised to turn, viewing Tuesday’s primaries as the first step toward a fall sweep in their campaigns for Senate and the state’s four House seats.

Not since 2014 have Republicans experienced material success in Nevada, with Democrats getting the better of the GOP up and down the ballot in the three consecutive elections. That futility could end this November, GOP insiders insist, explaining a favorable political environment is on track to sink Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and topple Nevada’s three incumbent House Democrats.

But to fulfill their ambitions, Nevada Republicans must field quality general election candidates. That is no sure thing, although party strategists are claiming confidence in GOP primary voters to deliver.

“The main thing to look for, in a year in which, at least at this early date, looks good for Republicans: Will they nominate unelectable candidates in key races?” said Jon Ralston, a veteran Nevada journalist and the founder of the Nevada Independent, a nonpartisan chronicler of state politics.

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CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Two neighboring South Carolina congressional districts share more than a border, as their Republican primary elections double as proxy wars over former President Donald Trump’s hold on the party.

Reps. Nancy Mace and Tom Rice, of South Carolina’s 1st and 7th Districts, respectively, are incumbents contending with opponents endorsed by Trump after criticizing the former president. The June 14 races present another test of Trump’s influence on Republican rank and file after inconclusive results from primaries conducted so far, including in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Rice, who supported impeaching Trump over the Capitol riot, will be judged by the 7th District days after the House Jan. 6 committee’s highly anticipated first public hearing. He has spent his campaign defending that vote, as he seeks a sixth term representing South Carolina’s solidly conservative Grand Strand and Pee Dee regions.

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The South Carolina GOP primary will mostly be devoid of drama. Still, all eyes are on the 1st Congressional District, where Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) seeks the renomination against Donald Trump-endorsed Katie Arrington, in yet another test of the former president’s influence within the party.

Arrington won a shocking primary win over Mark Sanford in 2018, losing to Democrat Joe Cunningham in the general election, the first time a Republican lost that seat in nearly 40 years.

Mace, the first woman to graduate from the Corps of Cadets program at The Citadel, ran for the seat in 2020 with Trump’s endorsement and edged out Cunningham by approximately 6,000 votes. Polling for House primary races is sporadic, but a Trafalgar Group poll taken at the end of May shows Mace with a lead of 5 points.

Arrington, for her part, is playing the role of a Trump acolyte to perfection. During the one debate she had with Mace, Arrington managed to make sure she told anyone watching how much she’d fight to keep critical race theory and the “transgender agenda” out of classrooms — something primarily reserved for state and local officials. She also accused Mace of acting like a “liberal” and a “RINO,” or “Republican in name only.”

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