An Independent Public Record

MACEOPEDIA

The Public Record

← Back to Dispatches

Part of: The 'tranny' slur at House Oversight (Feb. 5, 2025) · The McBride bathroom bill (Nov. 2024) · DEI & 'Gender Madness' · Transgender & LGBTQ Policy

Dispatch

"262 times in 36 hours": Mace's X habit becomes the story

On November 20, 2024, former Mace communications director Natalie Johnson called out the sheer volume of Nancy Mace's X posts about the Capitol bathroom fight, writing that Mace had tweeted 262 times in 36 hours about a bill aimed at one incoming member of Congress. The post became a clean public marker for a broader pattern: X posts flagged for hateful conduct, official-account replies aimed at private citizens, and later disputed reporting that former staffers were told to use burner accounts to boost her online.

Screenshot of Natalie Johnson's X post quoting Ron Filipkowski's count that Nancy Mace posted 262 times in 36 hours about the Capitol bathroom bill, and calling it a ploy for media attention rather than about protecting women.
Screenshot of Natalie Johnson's X post quoting Ron Filipkowski's count that Nancy Mace posted 262 times in 36 hours about the Capitol bathroom bill, and calling it a ploy for media attention rather than about protecting women.

In the days after Rep.-elect Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender member of Congress, Rep. Nancy Mace introduced a resolution aimed at barring transgender women from using women's restrooms and other single-sex facilities in the Capitol. Mace posted about it relentlessly. On November 20, 2024, her own former communications director, Natalie Johnson, put a number on it, writing that Mace had tweeted 262 times in 36 hours about a bill that, as Johnson put it, applies to "like .00000001% of Congress."

Reporting credit: Johnson's post was picked up and reported by Salon (Griffin Eckstein), "Just a ploy for media attention": Ex-aide says Mace's anti-trans tirade a stunt to get on Fox News (Nov. 21, 2024), and The New Republic (Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling), "Nancy Mace's Anti-Trans Stunt Is So Bad, She Lost Newsmax" (Nov. 22, 2024). ABC News 4 (WCIV) and Wired are credited below for the related reporting this dispatch also draws on.

The post

Johnson, who had served as Mace's communications director before leaving that role, quote-posted a tally from journalist Ron Filipkowski, who had counted Mace's posts about the bathroom fight over the prior day and a half:

Natalie Johnson, @nataliejohnsonn, quote-posting Ron Filipkowski's count of Mace's bathroom-bill posts, Nov. 20, 2024. Screenshot above preserves the post as it ran; the embed links to the live original.

In a separate post the same week, Johnson drew a sharper contrast, saying that if Mace's colleagues actually wanted to protect women in Congress they could start with legislation targeting former Rep. Matt Gaetz, whom she described as "a sexual predator with an affinity for underage girls," rather than what she called a "messaging bill" built for television.

Why this is the story

Johnson's tally became a clean, verifiable marker for a pattern that outside reporting kept documenting over the following months.

The bill itself. Mace's resolution targeted McBride's use of Capitol facilities before McBride had even been sworn in, and it drew pushback even from friendly outlets: The New Republic reported that a Newsmax host questioned Rep. Erin Houchin on air about how often bathroom-related incidents involving transgender people actually happen, noting she "haven't heard of any cases." Research on the underlying safety rationale Mace cited has found the risk to be negligible, which The New Republic's piece also noted.

The hateful-conduct flag. On December 6, 2024, ABC News 4 (WCIV) reported that X had applied a "limited visibility label" to a Mace post that used a slur for transgender people, after determining it violated the platform's hateful-conduct policy but should stay up as being in the public interest. GLAAD, which tracked the flag, noted the same material was not moderated at all on Instagram. Asked about it, Mace told reporters, "Women standing up for themselves is not hateful conduct. It's not hate speech."

The escalation to a private citizen. The pattern did not stay confined to legislation. On March 14, 2025, from her official congressional X account, Mace replied "Estrogen doesn't love you" to a transgender influencer's transition photo:

Rep. Nancy Mace, @RepNancyMace, March 14, 2025. Full record: Mace posts "Estrogen doesn't love you" at a transgender influencer.

That reply drew roughly 15 million views, and the influencer it targeted reported subsequent online harassment. It was widely criticized as a member of Congress using an official account to single out a private individual, four months after Johnson's "262 times" post had already flagged the volume and intensity of Mace's posting on the same general subject.

The later burner-account allegation

In May 2025, Wired reported, in a story subsequently covered by The Daily Beast, Snopes, and others, an allegation that Mace directed staffers to create fake accounts to monitor and "bolster her image" online, and that she personally ran automated accounts to amplify her own posts. Former campaign consultant Wesley Donehue was quoted in that reporting describing her as someone who "sits all night on the couch and programs bots." Mace denied the allegation, telling Fox News, "Unlike some folks, I don't need a burner phone to tell the truth," and characterizing the sources as "bitter exes." The allegation is contested and unproven; Maceopedia has not independently verified it. The full record, including Mace's denial, is at the "bot army" allegation.

Johnson's much earlier, easily verifiable count of 262 posts in 36 hours does not depend on that later, disputed allegation. It is a documented public post from Mace's own former communications director, made in real time, about volume she watched happen from the inside.

Sources & related coverage

This dispatch reproduces a dated, public post from Nancy Mace's own former communications director and situates it among Mace's own public statements and outside reporting, all linked above. The May 2025 burner-account allegation is presented as contested and unproven, with Mace's on-the-record denial included; readers can judge the full record for themselves.