Part of: Musgrave v. Mace (2:25-cv-01823-RMG) · The 2026 South Carolina Senate Special Election · 2026 Governor Campaign
Nancy 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.
On August 21, 2026, on an episode of her Facebook show "Get Maced," Rep. Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) is watching the South Carolina U.S. Senate runoff play out, throws up a hand, and says it:
"Oh, God. I don't even, I can't, I'm now regretting I'm not running for the US Senate."
Still from Rep. Mace's own video, posted to her verified Facebook page on August 21, 2026. Her burned-in caption reads "I'm, I'm now regretting I'm not running for the US Senate." Her words, unaltered.
Set that sentence down next to the last twelve weeks of her own career and it stops being a lament and starts being a punchline. This is not a case of the one that got away. Mace already ran statewide this year and lost badly, and when this exact Senate seat came open, she looked at it, polled at the back of the pack, and quit the race herself. The regret is for a decision she made, out loud, with her name on it.
What "running" actually looked like the last time
Ten weeks before this clip, on June 9, 2026, Mace ran in the South Carolina Republican primary for governor. She finished fifth of five, last among the major candidates, with 12.1 percent and 57,380 votes. She placed behind Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Attorney General Alan Wilson, Rep. Ralph Norman, and businessman Rom Reddy. Evette and Wilson advanced to a June 23 runoff. Mace did not qualify for it. (NBC News, Roll Call, The Washington Post)
That is the most recent data point on how a Nancy Mace statewide campaign performs when voters actually fill in the bubble. Dead last. The day after, she said she would not seek re-election to the House either, telling supporters, "When I ran in 2020 I said I'd only serve 3 terms and my time is up." (The Hill)
The Senate seat she is "regretting" is the one she turned down
The seat in that runoff belongs to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died on July 11, 2026. This was not a race Mace was shut out of. She was in the conversation from the first day, and here is exactly how her own flirtation with it went:
- July 12, she told Fox News, "I would be an idiot not to at least look at it."
- July 16, the first poll after Graham's death, an Emerson College survey of 500 likely GOP primary voters, put Mace at 10 percent, tied for third, behind Ralph Norman (16 percent) and Mark Lynch (13 percent). No candidate hit 20 percent. (Emerson release, The Hill)
- July 20, Mace posted a video announcing she would not run: "I'm not running for the US Senate." (Fox News, Fox Carolina)
So the timeline is not subtle. She looked at the seat, saw a poll that had her at 10 percent in a field with no front-runner, and took herself out. She then endorsed Ralph Norman, who is in the August 25 runoff. One month later, on camera, she says she "regrets" not doing the thing she publicly decided not to do.
The July 16 Emerson College Polling ballot test for the Republican special primary. Mace sits tied for third at 10 percent. Figures verbatim from Emerson's public release.
The scoreboard she is regretting
Here is the whole thing on one card, because the mockery writes itself once the numbers are in the same frame. A candidate who finished fifth of five in June, and who polled at 10 percent and withdrew from this Senate race in July, saying on tape in August that she "regrets" not running is not describing a missed opportunity. In our view it is describing an opinion she holds about herself that the voters have twice, on the record, declined to share. On the available evidence, a Mace Senate run looks a lot like the Mace governor run: an also-ran near the bottom of the ballot. Readers can judge that for themselves against the results above.
For the record, Mace is not a candidate in this runoff. The Republican contest on August 25, 2026 is between Ralph Norman, whom she endorsed, and interim Sen. Darline Graham Nordone, Graham's sister. Mace's role in it is that of a commentator who already ran, already lost, and is narrating from the cheap seats she chose.
Watch her say it
Rep. Mace's full "Get Maced" episode, embedded from her own verified Facebook page. The "regretting" line comes at roughly the nine-minute, thirty-four-second mark.
Sources & related coverage
- Rep. Nancy Mace, "Get Maced," episode posted August 21, 2026 (Facebook), the primary source for the quote in this dispatch.
- Governor's primary result: NBC News · Roll Call · The Washington Post · concession and House decision via The Hill.
- Senate seat: Emerson College poll (release, The Hill) · Mace rules out the race, Fox News, Fox Carolina.
- Related Maceopedia: Fifth of five, "collapse years in the making" · Emerson poll puts Mace at 10 percent, tied third · Mace rules out the Senate run · Mace endorses Norman.
This dispatch quotes Rep. Mace's own public statement verbatim from a video she posted publicly, and sets it against public election results and public polling. The characterization of the remark as self-flattering is stated opinion, disclosed and based on the cited results; readers can weigh it against the figures. It is not a statement about her mental state or a clinical judgment of any kind.
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July 21, 2026 · DispatchOne day after quitting the race, Nancy Mace endorses Ralph Norman and snubs Trump's pick for Graham's Senate seat
One day after ruling out her own Senate bid, Rep. Nancy Mace endorsed Rep. Ralph Norman for the South Carolina special election on July 21, 2026, breaking publicly with President Trump, who had endorsed Lindsey Graham's sister Darline Graham Nordone on July 17. Norman accepted the endorsement while pledging to 'stand with President Trump,' the same president whose candidate he and Mace are now both running against. Filing opens today and closes July 28, with the primary set for August 11.
July 30, 2026 · Dispatch'Advice, tips, hacks?': Mace's 'week 4' carnivore post is the newest chapter in two years of public posts about her weight, her hair, and PTSD
On July 30, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace, a sitting member of Congress and announced candidate for South Carolina governor, asked her X followers for 'advice, tips, hacks' on the carnivore diet, 'heading into week 4.' The post drew more than 200 replies, many asking why a member of Congress was crowdsourcing meal-plan tips. It was not the first time. Since November 2024, Mace has posted repeatedly and publicly about her body: a roughly 30-pound weight loss she attributes to PTSD, a 110-pound frame, 'about half my hair' lost to what she called PTSD-driven stress, and a viral post about eating beans after an election loss. This dispatch collects those public posts, in her own words, with screenshots of each.
July 20, 2026 · Dispatch"South Carolina, I'm in": Russell Fry becomes the fourth Republican to enter the race for Lindsey Graham's Senate seat
Rep. Russell Fry (SC-7) announced a bid for the U.S. Senate on X at 8:01 a.m. ET on July 20, 2026, becoming the fourth declared Republican in the special election for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham's seat, joining Mark Lynch, Duke Buckner, and Rep. Ralph Norman. Fry, 41, unseated five-term incumbent Tom Rice in a 2022 primary after Rice voted to impeach President Trump; Trump has praised Fry as 'outstanding' but has not endorsed him, having already backed interim Sen. Darline Graham Nordone. Candidate filing does not open until noon Tuesday, July 21, so none of the four declared candidates, or anyone else, has filed yet. About an hour after Fry declared, Rep. Nancy Mace posted an objection to dual candidacies, writing that 'if you're running for two offices at once, you've already told us who you are' and that she 'will never hand Hakeem Jeffries that gift.' She named no one, but on the facts as they stand only Fry fits: he won his SC-7 primary on June 9 and is already the Republican nominee for that seat, so he would appear on the November ballot for both offices, while Norman did not file for House reelection after running for governor. Mace has still not announced a decision of her own.
July 20, 2026 · Dispatch"I'm not chasing another title, I'm chasing justice": Nancy Mace rules out the Senate race, and with it, public office
On July 20, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace announced in a 64-second video on X that she will not enter the special election for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham's Senate seat. 'I want to be straight with you. I'm not running for the US Senate, not because I'm backing down from a fight, but because the one I'm already in matters right now.' The announcement came three days after President Trump endorsed Graham's sister, interim Sen. Darline Graham Nordone, for the full term. Combined with her June 10 decision not to seek re-election to the House, Mace is now set to leave public office when her term ends in January 2027. This dispatch reproduces the video statement in full, verbatim, alongside the separate written statement she posted with it.
- July 17, 2026 · Dispatch
Trump endorses Lindsey Graham's sister for a full Senate term, and puts Nancy Mace's decision in a harder box
President Trump endorsed Sen. Darline Graham Nordone for a full six-year term on July 17, 2026, the same day Axios reported that Rep. Nancy Mace is still considering a Senate bid despite the endorsement. The move closes the appointment lane Mace had been eyeing and forces a choice: run against Trump's chosen candidate in a primary where she trails at 10 percent, or stand down. This dispatch catalogs the full timeline, from Mace's 'I would be an idiot not to at least look at it' media tour on July 12, to her team's viability polling, to the Emerson poll showing her tied for third at 10 percent, to Trump's endorsement of Graham's sister.
August 10, 2026 · Dispatch'She was asked not to speak': Nancy Mace attends the renaming of the base in her own district, but never takes the podium
On Monday, August 10, 2026, Joint Base Charleston in North Charleston was ceremonially renamed Joint Base Lindsey Graham in honor of the late senator, who died July 11. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Gov. Henry McMaster, Sen. Darline Graham Nordone, and base commander Col. K. Michael Shirley II all spoke. Rep. Nancy Mace, whose SC-01 district includes the base and who has repeatedly claimed credit for its federal funding, attended the ceremony but had no speaking role and was not quoted by any outlet covering it. According to a current staff member, Mace was asked not to speak. She had skipped Graham's funeral on July 28, declined to run for his Senate seat, and endorsed Ralph Norman over Trump's pick, Graham's sister Darline, who spoke at the podium Mace did not.