After placing fifth in her bid to be South Carolina‘s next governor, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) conceded and endorsed state Attorney General Alan Wilson, her political foe, for the seat.
Mace and Wilson have gone head-to-head as political rivals over the past few years, with Wilson calling Mace an “entitled, spoiled brat” and Mace blasting Wilson for executing a political “hit job” against her gubernatorial campaign. But the two enemies have apparently let bygones be bygones as of Tuesday evening, as Mace conceded her gubernatorial bid loss and backed Wilson in his runoff against Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette (R-SC), predicting Wilson will “mop the floor” with Evette.
“What many of you do not know is that in the last couple of weeks, Alan Wilson and I have buried the hatchet,” Mace said on Tuesday evening. “I want a law-and-order governor, and that law-and-order governor is going to be Alan Wilson.”
Mace, who came in fifth place with just over 12% of the vote as of Tuesday evening, fell 14.1 percentage points behind Wilson and 17.2 percentage points behind Evette in the general primary. President Donald Trump-endorsed Evette placed first in the primary.
Mace’s endorsement of Wilson comes after she was snubbed by Trump’s backing of Evette, as the sitting congresswoman highlighted old, endorsement-like imagery of herself with Trump, even after the President backed Evette over her. The friction between Mace and Trump was evident when he backed Evette, but it largely began over her championing the release of the Epstein files in the House. Mace acknowledged that this decision may have cost her votes on Tuesday night, but stood by the decision.
“I voted to release the Epstein files and lost some support for that. As a survivor, I chose to stand on principle and stand against the Epstein cover-up. I chose to expose the names hidden in the sexual harassment slush fund. I chose to expose DEI judges. I chose to expose the abusers of children. And apparently, I chose wrong if the goal was winning an election. I’m at peace with that,” Mace wrote on X.
Mace had also called on Evette to drop out of the race on the day of the primary, pointing to a video shared by Mace’s campaign of a volunteer with Evette’s campaign allegedly assaulting a Mace supporter.
By backing the challenger to Trump-endorsed Evette, Mace is also moving on from years of sparring with Wilson. Mace had previously accused Wilson of not doing enough to prosecute crimes against women as attorney general, saying “real men protect women” and accusing him of turning “a blind eye to women and girls for the last 15 years.” Wilson called the allegations “categorically false.”
PAMELA EVETTE AND ALAN WILSON HEAD TO RUNOFF FOR SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR GOP NOD
Their tensions peaked again in December, when Mace called a released police report on her behavior toward law enforcement officers at the Charleston International Airport a political “hit job” by Wilson. Wilson clapped back, calling Mace an “entitled, spoiled brat” and saying “it’s not just this one incident,” alluding to other alleged behavioral incidents.
But now that seems to be all water under the Ravenel Bridge, as Wilson has the backing of Mace heading into the June 23 runoff to see which Republican will face off in the November general election against Democratic state Rep. Jermaine Johnson.