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CHARLESTON, S.C. — At a marketing campaign occasion the weekend earlier than South Carolina’s major election, Tom Rice, a conservative congressman now on the flawed aspect of former President Donald J. Trump, supplied a confession.
“I made my subsequent election a bit of bit more durable than those up to now,” he mentioned on Friday, imploring his supporters — a bunch he known as “affordable, rational of us” and “good, strong mainstream Republicans” — to help him on the polls on Tuesday.
Two days earlier than and a few 100 miles south, Consultant Nancy Mace, one other Palmetto State Republican who drew the previous president’s ire, acknowledged her place whereas knocking doorways on a sweltering morning.
“I settle for every part. I take accountability. I don’t again down,” she mentioned, assured that voters in her Lowcountry district could be sympathetic. “They know that ‘hey, even when I disagree together with her, a minimum of she’s going to inform me the place she is,’” she added.
Ms. Mace and Mr. Rice are the previous president’s two targets for revenge on Tuesday. After a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, they had been amongst those that blamed the president for the assault. Ms. Mace, simply days into her first time period, mentioned that Mr. Trump’s false rhetoric in regards to the presidential election being “stolen” had stoked the riot and threatened her life. Mr. Rice, whose district borders Ms. Mace’s to the north, instantly condemned Mr. Trump and joined 9 different Republicans (however not Ms. Mace) in later voting for his impeachment.
Now, within the face of major challenges backed by the previous president, the 2 have taken starkly totally different approaches to political survival. Ms. Mace has taken the enamel out of her criticisms of Mr. Trump, searching for as an alternative to debate her conservative voting file and libertarian streak in coverage discussions. Mr. Rice, as an alternative, has dug in, defending his impeachment vote and additional excoriating Mr. Trump within the course of.
Ought to they fend off their major challengers on Tuesday, Ms. Mace and Mr. Rice will be a part of a rising listing of incumbents who’ve endured the wrath of the G.O.P.’s Trump wing with out ending their political careers. But their conflicting methods — a mirrored image of each their political instincts and the differing politics of their districts — will provide a take a look at simply how far a candidate can go of their defiance of Mr. Trump.
Within the eyes of her supporters, Ms. Mace’s previous feedback are much less concrete than a vote to question. She has aimed to enhance her relationship with pro-Trump parts of the G.O.P., spending practically daily of the previous a number of weeks on the marketing campaign path to remind voters of her Republican bona fides, not her unfiltered criticism of Mr. Trump.
“Everybody is aware of I used to be sad that day,” she mentioned of Jan. 6. “The whole world is aware of. All my constituents know.”
How Donald J. Trump Nonetheless Looms
Her district, which stretches from the left-leaning corners of Charleston to Hilton Head’s conservative nation golf equipment, has an voters that features far-right Republicans and liberal Democrats. Ms. Mace has marketed herself not solely as a conservative candidate but additionally one who can defend the politically various district in opposition to a Democratic rival in November.
“It’s and at all times might be a swing district,” she mentioned. “I’m a conservative, however I additionally perceive I don’t symbolize solely conservatives.”
That’s not a constructive message for all within the Lowcountry, nonetheless.
Ted Huffman, proprietor of Bluffton BBQ, a restaurant nestled within the coronary heart of Bluffton’s touristy city middle, mentioned he was supporting Katie Arrington, the Trump-backed former state consultant taking over Ms. Mace. What counted in opposition to Ms. Mace was not her feud with Mr. Trump however her relative absence within the restaurant’s a part of the district, Mr. Huffman mentioned.
“Katie Arrington, she’s been right here,” Mr. Huffman mentioned, recalling the few occasions Ms. Arrington visited Bluffton BBQ. “I’ve by no means seen Nancy Mace.”
Throughout a Summerville occasion with Nikki Haley, the previous South Carolina governor, Ms. Mace gave a stump speech that ran down an inventory of right-wing speaking factors: excessive inflation pushed by President Biden’s financial agenda, an inflow of immigrants on the Southern border, help for army veterans. She didn’t point out Mr. Trump.
Ms. Mace predicts a decisive major win in opposition to Ms. Arrington, who has positioned her Trump endorsement on the middle of her marketing campaign message. A victory within the face of that, Ms. Mace mentioned, would show “the weak point of any endorsement.”
“Sometimes I don’t put an excessive amount of weight into endorsements as a result of they don’t matter,” she mentioned. “It’s actually the candidate. It’s the particular person individuals are voting for — that’s what issues.”
Talking from her entrance porch in Moncks Nook, S.C., Deidre Stechmeyer, a 42-year-old stay-at-home mom, mentioned she was not carefully following Ms. Mace’s race. However when requested in regards to the congresswoman’s feedback condemning the Jan. 6 riot, she shifted.
“That’s one thing that I agree together with her on,” she mentioned, including that she supported Ms. Mace’s resolution to certify the Electoral School vote — a transfer that some within the G.O.P. have pointed to as a definitive betrayal of Mr. Trump. “There was simply a lot battle and uncertainty. I really feel prefer it ought to’ve been licensed.”
Mr. Rice’s impeachment vote, however, presents a extra identifiable turnabout.
It’s a part of the rationale Ms. Mace has a snug lead in her race, according to recent polls, whereas Mr. Rice faces way more major challengers and is most definitely headed to a runoff with a Trump-endorsed state consultant, Russell Fry, after Tuesday.
Mr. Fry’s marketing campaign has centered Mr. Rice’s impeachment vote in its message, turning the vote right into a referendum on Mr. Rice’s 5 phrases in Congress.
“It’s about greater than Donald Trump. It’s about an incumbent congressman shedding the belief of a really conservative district,” mentioned Matt Moore, former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Get together and an adviser to Mr. Fry’s marketing campaign.
Nonetheless, Mr. Rice is betting on his hyper-conservative financial file and once-unapologetic help of the previous president to win him a sixth time period in considered one of South Carolina’s most pro-Trump congressional districts.
In an interview, Mr. Rice famous the Republican Get together’s shift towards pushing social points over coverage — one thing he mentioned had been pushed partly by the previous president’s wing of the occasion, which helped redefine it.
He additionally laid out what the Republican Get together ought to stand for: “much less taxes, much less authorities, extra freedom, particular person accountability, the American Dream,” he mentioned. “If we’re not for that, then, gosh, I don’t know what the Republican Get together’s about.”
The impeachment vote has additionally received him favor with some voters. Rick Giles, a Rice supporter in Conway, S.C., mentioned he admired Mr. Rice for his vote.
“He stood as much as Trump when lots of people didn’t,” Mr. Giles mentioned. “He stood on his values. He didn’t go along with the occasion line. I like that.”
Mr. Rice’s district, in South Carolina’s northeast nook alongside the North Carolina border, is among the state’s most conservative, favoring Republicans by practically 30 factors. And earlier than the impeachment vote, Mr. Rice was considered one of Mr. Trump’s most staunch supporters, with a voting file that matched Mr. Trump’s stance greater than 90 % of the time.
“It’s not about my voting file. It’s not about my help of Trump. It’s not about my ideology. It’s not as a result of this different man’s any good,” Mr. Rice mentioned. “There’s just one purpose why he’s doing this. And it’s only for revenge.”
Mr. Trump has had much less success within the states on the root of his major challenger push. In Georgia, two of his most distinguished perceived enemies, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, handily received their primaries in opposition to challengers backed by the previous president. The 2 Home races the place he didn’t endorse incumbents have gone to a runoff.
Mark Sanford, a former congressman who was bested by Ms. Arrington in 2018 after Mr. Trump backed her major problem, predicted that Ms. Mace would prevail.
“I believe she’ll be high-quality,” he mentioned, pointing to the state’s rising variety of transplants from northern states who are inclined to favor institution candidates. “That bodes nicely for Nancy, it doesn’t bode nicely for Katie.”
Nonetheless, he mentioned, Tuesday’s end result is unlikely to vary the previous president’s method to politics.
“It’s binary with Trump,” Mr. Sanford mentioned. “You’re not midway in, midway out — you’re both in or out.”
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