<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1654691257850,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000162-07b2-d172-a563-4ffafb0a0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1654691257850,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000162-07b2-d172-a563-4ffafb0a0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_54618687", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1027695"} }); ","_id":"00000181-4348-dedf-ad93-df6bd8570000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedCHARLESTON, 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.
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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.
Rice is cognizant of the national consequences of the contest, in which his main rival is state Rep. Russell Fry. Rice’s own internal polling indicates a runoff is likely, and Fry has undermined his honesty and trustworthiness with self-enrichment allegations. Rice has denied any wrongdoing regarding the accusations.
“It’s that much more important to help to set the direction of the party moving forward,” he told reporters after a luncheon at an upscale Florence hotel restaurant.
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who appeared alongside Rice at the luncheon, agreed later during a business roundtable down the road. Ryan is hopeful there will be parallels between Georgia and South Carolina after Georgia Republicans renominated Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last month, despite Trump’s best efforts to oust them.
“The more he keeps endorsing people, and those other people don’t win, the faster our party gets back to being a party based on policies and principles and not a person,” Ryan said of Trump.
One-time Rep. Robin Tallon (R-SC), a former Reagan-era Democrat-turned-Republican, is adamant Trump’s standing is “waning,” though many district county leaders and constituents disagree. Tallon pointed to the dwindling number of Trump flags displayed in the harbor near his intercoastal waterway home as evidence.
“Last year this time, half the boats in that marina, several hundred boats, had Trump flags flying on them,” he told the Washington Examiner. “I looked out this morning, and I didn’t see but maybe 1 in 10 boats in the whole 200-boat marina.”
Tallon also argued that “there was a lot stronger push to get rid of Tom Rice two years ago” after Trump’s impeachment. It remains to be seen whether that will be moot after the Jan. 6 hearings, when Fry’s events already exude more momentum than those for Rice.
Horry County Republican Party chairman Roger Slagle countered with Trump’s endorsement win rate, although he conceded that “nobody’s ever going to be perfect.”
“Donald Trump is very much alive, well, and very much controlling the narrative of the Republican Party in the United States,” he said, at least of his Myrtle Beach domain. “That is a no-brainer to me.”
Jerry Rovner, 1st District Republican Party chairman, who is supposed to be neutral during the race, described palpable anger over Trump’s impeachment. He recounted Rice being jeered on the trail.
Rice has amplified his Trump scrutiny while promoting his tax, trade, and energy record, amid tacit 7th District Democratic outreach in the open primary state with help from outsider group money. In comparison, freshman Mace has both stood by her condemnations of Trump and reminded her lean, conservative Low County 1st District she worked for the former president’s 2016 campaign. At the same time, she declined to allude to Trump as the Republican standard-bearer when asked about him twice.
“I believe we have many leaders of the Republican Party,” she said after a Beaufort constituent event. “We have many leaders in our party.”
Trump’s endorsement of Mace’s competitor, former state Rep. Katie Arrington, is different from his backing of Fry against Rice because Arrington lost the 1st District’s 2018 general election against ex-Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham. However, several local officials and voters expressed similar concerns to the 7th District in that Mace should have sided with them and not her conscience when she denounced Trump over Jan. 6 and certified the 2020 Electoral College count.
Daniel Island resident Elizabeth Brackett, 58, disapproved of so-called “Republicans in name only,” claiming they “don’t know the Constitution or they don’t value the Constitution.”
“We’re tired of that. We want those people out of office,” she said. “We, the people, we call them our leaders. They’re not our leaders. They’re our representatives.”
Nevertheless, for Dennis Tauber, 70, Trump’s opinion is a “valuable” consideration, yet “it is not the only one.”
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“As Ronald Reagan said, ‘You elect the most conservative Republican that will win the general,’” the Bluffton resident said. “I like some of [Arrington’s] ideas, but Nancy is more, I think, middle of the road. I think she is more electable.”
