Part of: Musgrave v. Mace (2:25-cv-01823-RMG) · 2026 Governor Campaign
Mace enters SC governor's race: 'South Carolina doesn't need another empty suit'
On August 4, 2025, Mace officially announced her campaign for South Carolina governor, framing her candidacy as a contrast to what she called 'empty suits.'
On August 4, 2025, officially entering the South Carolina governor's race, Mace said:
"I'm running for governor because South Carolina doesn't need another empty suit. It needs a governor who will fight for you and your values."
The announcement came as Mace had been publicly signaling a potential gubernatorial run for several months.
Source: SC Daily Gazette · archived
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On January 28, 2025, before formally announcing her own gubernatorial run, Mace vowed to personally ensure an unspecified potential opponent never became South Carolina's governor.
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A catalog of the record. Across nine years in office Nancy Mace built a national brand and almost no results to match it. She finished dead last, fifth of five, in the 2026 Republican primary for governor. She helped throw out a sitting Speaker of the House and got a more MAGA Speaker, three weeks of paralysis, and a revenge primary for her trouble. She lost to Lindsey Graham the one time she ran against him, in 2014, then talked herself out of his seat in 2026 after polling at 10 percent. Of the 192 bills she has sponsored, the only ones enacted rename post offices. And the Trump endorsement she remade her whole career to win went, twice, to her opponents. Every figure and quote below is public and dated.
August 22, 2026 · DispatchNancy Mace says she is "now regretting" not running for the Senate. She finished fifth of five for governor, then ruled herself out of this very seat.
In an August 21, 2026 episode of her Facebook show 'Get Maced,' Rep. Nancy Mace watches a rival in the South Carolina U.S. Senate runoff and says, 'I'm now regretting I'm not running for the US Senate.' The line lands against her own recent record. Ten weeks earlier she finished fifth of five in the June 9 Republican gubernatorial primary with 12.1 percent. When Lindsey Graham's Senate seat then opened, she polled at 10 percent, tied for third, and on July 20 she publicly ruled herself out. This dispatch sets her on-camera regret next to the results and polling she is regretting.
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