Part of: The 2026 South Carolina Senate Special Election · 2026 Governor Campaign
Mace honors Lindsey Graham after months of public clashes: 'We did not always agree'
After Sen. Lindsey Graham died at 71 from what his office described as a brief and sudden illness, Nancy Mace posted a respectful Instagram tribute calling him a South Carolina giant and acknowledging, 'We did not always agree.' The post landed against a recent public record of friction: during her 2026 governor campaign, Mace demanded that President Trump remove Graham from the Situation Room over Iran, attacked him as sending 'someone else's kids to war,' and months earlier fired back after Graham backed Tim Scott's rebuke of her Charleston airport conduct. The longer arc stretches back to 2014, when Mace challenged Graham in the Republican U.S. Senate primary and finished fifth.
On July 12, 2026, after news broke that South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham had died at 71, Nancy Mace posted a tribute on her verified Instagram account, @nancyrmace. The image card read, "REST IN PEACE SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM 1955-2026." In the caption, Mace called Graham a South Carolina giant, credited his decades of service in the Air Force and the United States Senate, acknowledged that the two "did not always agree," and asked readers to pray for Graham's family and friends.
Reporting credit: Graham's death was reported by Roll Call, which said his office attributed it to a "brief and sudden illness." Roll Call also reported that Graham had recently won the South Carolina Republican Senate primary and was seeking a fifth term. Mace's tribute is sourced to her July 12 Instagram post.
The condolence was statesmanlike. It also arrived after a campaign year in which Mace and Graham's relationship had been publicly strained.
Today's post
Mace's Instagram post did not mention the recent disputes. It instead placed Graham in the older South Carolina frame: a senior senator, a military veteran, and a public official who had spent decades in national politics. The line that carries the public-record context is the concession inside the tribute itself:
"We did not always agree."
That was an understatement. During Mace's 2026 campaign for governor, Graham was not simply a distant senior senator. He became one of the Republican figures she used to draw a line between her anti-ground-war posture and the party's Iran hawks.
The Situation Room fight
In March 2026, as the Trump administration's Iran war dominated Washington, Mace turned directly on Graham. On X, she argued that he should be removed from the Situation Room and wrote that she did not want to hear from "a guy with no kids" who, in her framing, was sending other families' children into a ground war.
Mace kept the same theme across the next several days, arguing that Graham's foreign policy record was Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran, and that he should not be urging action around Iran's Kharg Island unless he was willing to go himself. On CNN's Laura Coates Live, after a clip of Graham urging Trump to seize Kharg Island, Mace made the demand on camera:
"I want President Trump to take Lindsey Graham out of the Situation Room.", Nancy Mace, CNN, March 25, 2026
The exchange fit a larger campaign posture. Mace was still praising Trump, but she was trying to place herself against what she called the Washington war machine. The Iran fight unfolded while she was running in the Republican primary for South Carolina governor, a race she ultimately lost in June after finishing fifth.
The airport rebuke
The friction did not begin with Iran. On November 5, 2025, Graham publicly backed Sen. Tim Scott's rebuke of Mace after her October 30 confrontation with police and TSA staff at Charleston International Airport.
Graham wrote that he concurred with Scott and said he had experienced "nothing but positive, respectful engagements" with the officers and TSA agents who provide security at Charleston International Airport. Mace responded to both senators that same day, framing the criticism as a gendered double standard and writing:
"REAL MEN PROTECT WOMEN"
In another post aimed more directly at Graham, she wrote:
"Interesting. Lindsey Graham all of a sudden wants to talk about women."
Several outlets treated that line as a pointed jab at Graham. Graham's office did not publicly answer that part of the exchange.
The older rivalry
The relationship also had a longer electoral history. Before Mace entered Congress, she challenged Graham in the 2014 Republican U.S. Senate primary. Graham won that race; Mace finished fifth. More than a decade later, when she ran statewide again, he remained a powerful South Carolina Republican figure and she was again trying to define herself against parts of the state's Republican establishment.
That is the useful public-record frame for today's tribute. Mace's post did not erase the clashes. It acknowledged the disagreement, then chose the respectful line: Graham had fought for South Carolina, and his family and friends deserved prayers.
Sources & related coverage:
- Nancy Mace, Instagram tribute to Lindsey Graham (July 12, 2026)
- Roll Call, "Lindsey Graham, defense hawk and four-term senator, dead at 71"
- The Independent, "Nancy Mace urges Trump to remove Lindsey Graham from the Situation Room"
- Maceopedia, 'Another Iraq': Mace walks out of a classified Iran briefing and tells Trump to take Lindsey Graham 'out of the Situation Room'
- Maceopedia, Lindsey Graham backs Scott: 'nothing but positive, respectful engagements'
- Maceopedia, Mace fires back at Scott and Graham: 'REAL MEN PROTECT WOMEN'
- Maceopedia, Lindsey Graham
- Maceopedia, 2026 Governor Campaign