Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) gained another Republican primary challenger on Monday, increasing the competition for South Carolina‘s 1st Congressional District in 2024.
Catherine Templeton, former director of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control and former president of US Brick, launched her campaign on Monday. She also ran unsuccessfully for governor of South Carolina in 2018 with the support of former President Donald Trump.
At a press event in Mount Pleasant with more than 100 supporters, Templeton called for a “consistent conservative voice” for the district, following increased scrutiny over Mace’s voting decisions regarding Republican leadership and her endorsement of Trump.
“We have serious problems — and we need serious people to solve them. We need a trusted leader who values service over celebrity,” Templeton said at her launch event. “We need a consistent conservative who doesn’t flip-flop for fame. An adult to fight for U.S. in Washington who is more interested in policy than politics.”
Templeton joins Dan Hanlon, Mace’s former chief of staff, and Austin Anderson in the primary race to unseat Mace, who was elected to Congress in 2020 and is seeking her third term in the House. The South Carolina congresswoman dismissed Templeton as a “puppet in Kevin McCarthy’s bitter revenge operation.”
“I’ve always put the Lowcountry first. I’ll continue to fight the DC establishment who put their interests above yours, as I always have,” Mace said Monday in a post on X, tagging a website targeting Templeton.
Mace suffered severe backlash after she voted with seven other hard-line Republicans to unseat Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last year, coming as a surprise to both parties. She recently made a shocking endorsement of Trump in the 2024 Republican primary in a slight to former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, despite offering criticism of the former president in the past and his endorsement of her primary challenger in the 2022 midterm elections. Haley endorsed Mace that year, and she won.
One of Mace’s Democratic challengers, Michael B. Moore, had dared her to endorse either Haley or Trump. He had previously accused Mace’s “dance” between presenting herself as a centrist Republican and voting for hard-line conservative values of being a strategy to set herself up for higher office. Moore faces Mac Deford in the Democratic primary.
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The increase in the number of primary challengers to Mace comes as she is in the spotlight for the level of turnover in her personal office on Capitol Hill. The South Carolina congresswoman lost three of her senior staffers in one week in December, with Hanlon being fired on Dec. 1. Her deputy chief of staff, Richard Chalkey, resigned, and her legislative director, Randal Meyer, resigned effective the end of December.
Hanlon’s candidacy could prove a significant threat to Mace and give him an edge over his primary opponents, as it leaves her vulnerable to attacks by a figure more familiar with her internal workings than anyone else.
