‘A purpose in life’: Voters send Mace back to Congress for 2 more years in SC 1st District

Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace beat challenger Dr. Annie Andrews late Tuesday night after what had been a contentious midterm election to represent South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District.

Roughly four hours after the polls closed in South Carolina, the Associated Press reported that Mace had a 13% lead with 56.35%, or 133,869 votes, and Andrews, a pediatrician, had 42.49%, or 100,928 votes, and declared Mace the winner.

Mace’s win against Andrews marks the first time a woman won two back-to-back terms to represent South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District.

The Lowcountry district covers parts of Beaufort, Charleston, Colleton and Jasper counties. Both candidates hail from Charleston.

In a news release declaring her victory, Mace, the incumbent, said that serving as the representative of the 1st Congressional District has been an honor.

“Lowcountry voters have given me a purpose in life I didn’t know I ever had,” she said. “I promised two years ago to put the Lowcountry First, not partisan politics, and be an independent voice. Today voters made their voices heard. I will continue to be that voice as long as you will have me.”

Mace also thanked Andrews for “stepping into the arena” and said she knew the strain that a campaign can take on both a candidate and their family.

In a statement from the South Carolina Republican Party congratulating Mace, officials said they were proud of the win.

In the June primary election, she defeated Trump-backed Katie Arrington in what Mace called a “brutal” race.

In a speech posted to Andrews’ Twitter page Tuesday night from the American Theater in Charleston, she said she “left everything on the field” in what she called a race that was stacked against her.

“I have had my share of losses, but I know when we lose, we lose forward,” she said. “I have fought for the children of the Lowcountry for over a decade and I am going to wake up tomorrow and be fighting with all of you.”

Important Issues

In the weeks leading up to the election, the two battled it out over issues facing the district including climate change affecting Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, health care and abortion access.

“As a physician, I understand that abortion is health care and I know women in South Carolina will not be safe if we have an extreme abortion ban like my opponent supports,” Andrews said in an Oct. 19 debate.

Andrews contended that Mace’s support of a “life at conception” bill would ban abortion without exceptions for women who are victims of rape and or incest.

Mace argued with her opponent’s stance stating that the word abortion appears nowhere in the one-sentence bill. Mace pointed to her work as a state lawmaker in 2019 when she advocated for the House to make exceptions for rape and incest in its six-week so-called “fetal heartbeat” abortion ban as evidence that she would not accept a ban without exceptions. She also highlighted the fact that she was one of eight Republicans to break away from their party in voting to protect access to contraception.

“I have not ever voted or sponsored a bill that would ban abortion without exceptions,” Mace said. “That is simply not the case at all and I would not.”

Jace Woodrum, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said interview with a reporter from the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette that the congresswoman was “being quite dishonest” in defending her support of the bill.

“It says quite clearly that a fertilized egg is a human being that is entitled to the full protection of the law without regard for how that human came to be, where that human lives, whether that human’s existence threatens the life of another human,” he said. So, I think it’s quite unquestionable that this is an attempt to ban abortion.”

The two traded jabs during the debate regarding health care. In a Nov. 2 trip to Beaufort in support of Gov. Henry McMaster, Mace said her opponent “doesn’t know how to pay for health care.”

“If we don’t win this seat, that’s what we’re going to get in Congress,” Mace said.

Before the election

In January, the General Assembly passed a new congressional map for the state that redrew the 1st, 2nd and 5th congressional districts, according to previous reporting by The State newspaper. In February, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP that alleged state lawmakers violated the 14th and 15th amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which gave all citizens equal protection under the law and Black men the right to vote.

The lawsuit claims that race was the driving force behind redrawing the district. This is an allegation that the defendants, including South Carolina House and Senate Republican leaders and the State Election Commission’s director and commissioners, have denied citing politics is what prompted line-drawing choices.

Federal courts do not reconsider partisan redistricting, according to a 2019 South Carolina Supreme Court decision. Therefore, judges in the lawsuit will have to evaluate the case through the lens of whether district lines discriminate against Black voters. Closing arguments won’t take place until Nov. 22.

Since first announcing her campaign in 2021, Andrews had honed in on gun safety and health care and claimed that Mace’s voting pattern during her term was not motivated by what is best for Lowcountry families.

“My opponent is a typical aspiring career politician,” she said during the Oct. 19 debate. “She will say anything and she will do anything to get elected. Her credibility is shot and I’m not the only one who thinks that.”

Ahead of her 2020 win over Democrat Joe Cunningham, Mace promised voters she would be an “independent voice” which, she said, was essential to recovering the Republican majority in Congress. Keeping that promise, Mace said during the Oct. 19 debate, came at a “steep price to me personally and politically.”

Before the midterm election, numerous politicians came out rallying for Mace’s win. On Monday, Mace’s campaign announced more than $200,000 was raised in a fundraiser spearheaded by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.

“It’s unheard of to have this kind of fundraising haul in the last week before an election in congressional races,” Mace said in a news release. “Our momentum shows just how ready the country is for a new Republican majority with Kevin McCarthy at the helm.”

Other politicians who have come out in support of Mace before the election include Miami Mayor Francisco Suarez and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat in the 2020 presidential election.

At a rally at Beaufort’s Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park on Oct. 27, Andrews claimed her opponent’s solutions to address the federal budget — Mace’s Penny Plan to Enhance Infrastructure Act of 2022 — would cut Social Security and other benefits for veterans.

Mace’s camp was quick to deny these allegations in a news release later saying Andrews has “no idea what she is doing.”

“The real challenge facing seniors and veterans today is inflation, and the fact is Annie Andrews supported the Biden-Pelosi spending spree that caused this economic pain in the first place,” said Mace’s campaign manager, Austin McCubbin.