Nancy Mace Keeps Clashing With Her Own Party, One Week Before Election Day

In a week the retiring congresswoman has taken on the Vice President's defense of an Ohio ad, her party's spending in South Carolina, her own committee and the Iran war. Some of it breaks with Trump's camp. Some does not.

Tuesday, October 27, 2026. Election Day is November 3.

Nancy Mace is not on the ballot next Tuesday, and over the past week she has been in open disagreement with Republican leaders on four fronts. She gave the reason on her October 22 "Get Maced" episode: "It's because I'm not on the ballot for the first time in about nine years." She leaves the House on January 3. By her own account she is "not retiring, retiring."

Her party and the Ohio ad

The sharpest clash is over an Ohio governor's race ad. Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign released a spot featuring the estranged mother of Democratic nominee Amy Acton, in which the mother calls Acton a liar. According to court documents the Acton campaign provided, as reported by CBS News and ABC News, Acton's stepfather was charged with sexually abusing her as a child. He pleaded not guilty and never stood trial. He died in 2004.

On CNN on Wednesday, October 21, Mace called it "the most shameful, disgusting, offensive ad this election season." She aimed at the Vice President too. On the CNN clip she said: "And the idea that the vice president would go to the mattresses to defend this ad might have cost J.D. Vance the presidency." On X, as reported by WCIV, she wrote that "anyone doubling down defending that ad needs to have their head examined."

On the podcast she went further. She said Ramaswamy "could have run and won without that nasty story trotting out Amy Acton's mother on a TV ad." She called the choice "political suicide," said "It's disgusting," and tied it to a broader problem: Republicans are "bleeding women voters because of that kind of behavior towards women."

Her party's leaders went the other way. On October 21, Vance told reporters Republicans should "stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days." Ohio Sen. Jon Husted said he "would not have run that ad." On October 22, Gov. Mike DeWine said, "It's wrong to run this ad." The same day, Trump posted on Truth Social that Ramaswamy had put up "a very powerful Ad." Asked by reporters about the stepfather charges, Trump said: "Well I know nothing about it."

Mace says on the recording that the election is "13 days" away, which suggests she taped the podcast on October 21, before Trump's post. Her podcast remarks answered the ad and Vance, not Trump's Thursday defense. Her X comment about people "doubling down" lands closer to the administration, but it does not name anyone.

Money and her party's priorities in South Carolina

On the same episode she turned to her party's prospects. "I'm very worried about the midterms," she said. In a forecast she gave in her own words: "I think it's going to be a bloodbath." And: "we're going to suffer some losses we should not have." Later: "I think we're going to get wiped out."

Then she described where her party is spending. "We've had to move money into South Carolina for [Darline] Graham's race because she hasn't raised any money," she said.

The senator is Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham's sister, appointed by Gov. Henry McMaster after the senator's death in July and endorsed by Trump for a full term. Mace has history with that endorsement. In late July she told Fox News Digital, as reported by the Hindustan Times, that Graham "has no record and I am not even sure she's qualified to be on the ballot," citing new primary participation rules.

What do the numbers say? "Hasn't raised any money" is an overstatement, but the gap is real. A fundraising summary built from FEC filings, reported by myrtlebeachnews.com, says Graham raised about $1.5 million in the third quarter and finished September with just under $610,000 on hand. Her Democratic opponent, Annie Andrews, reported $9.4 million raised and $2.3 million in the bank. CBS News reported on October 6 that the Senate Leadership Fund, the main Republican super PAC, was putting $5 million into Graham's race, which CBS called "a sign the party is concerned about the race, even though South Carolina is a solidly red state."

"Both sides protect the other"

The same episode includes her complaint about her own committee. "I'm the one that tried to have Ilhan Omar and her alleged brother-husband's immigration record subpoena," she said. "Both Republicans and Democrats shut me down at every turn."

The public record supports part of that. On January 7, 2026, the House Oversight Committee tabled Mace's motion to subpoena immigration records tied to Rep. Ilhan Omar, according to the New York Post, after members argued the Ethics Committee should handle the concern. The Post also noted that the underlying theory, that Omar married her brother, is unproven, and that Omar has called it "disgusting lies." We found no roll call showing how each party voted on the tabling motion, so her "both Republicans and Democrats" claim is not confirmed here. Her conclusion: "that's Congress for you because both sides protect the other."

Iran: "I don't like the Iran war"

On Tuesday's episode, mostly a long critique of Barack Obama's 2015 nuclear deal, Mace paused to say where she stands on the current war. "I don't like the Iran war," she said. "I don't want troops on the ground." She added: "It's time to bring our troops home. I don't want any forever wars in the Middle East." And: "Most of America doesn't like the Iran war."

Two cautions. She did not criticize Trump by name in that segment, and her target for most of the episode was Obama, whom she accused of kicking "the can down the road for the next guy, including Joe Biden and Donald Trump." Also, her position moved, as the record below shows. On October 26 CBS reported Trump was weighing a deal against action to "finish them off."

The record of breaking ranks

Her friction with the party has a history, though not every item belongs in the same column. She summed it up on October 22: "I got railroaded multiple times by both Democrats and Republicans."

Items that put her against Trump or his endorsed candidates:

• 2026, Senate race: Maceopedia's earlier coverage records that she backed Rep. Ralph Norman over Trump's pick, Graham. Graham beat Norman in the August runoff.
• 2026, governor's race: Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette on May 29. Mace did not make the June runoff, and Evette lost it to Alan Wilson on June 23 (AP). On the podcast Mace said, "I placed fifth, by the way." The AP described her as finishing last, so we attribute the rank to her.
• War powers: on March 5 she voted no on a war powers resolution, and her House statement, as cited in Maceopedia's September 16 dispatch, said "We must finish the job." On March 26 she told The Independent that "President Trump has done a phenomenal job," while telling Axios, "I'm not voting to send South Carolina's sons and daughters into battle to die for the price of oil." On September 1 she told CNN that if the War Powers Act came up she "would vote for it." On September 15 she was one of seven House Republicans who voted for the third war powers resolution, which passed 220 to 204. It is a concurrent resolution, and the AP noted Trump would almost certainly veto a binding version.
• 2025, Epstein files discharge petition: The Hill reported that Mace had signed Rep. Thomas Massie's petition by the night of September 2, 2025, one of four House Republicans to do so. Speaker Mike Johnson opposed it, calling the petition "unnecessary" (CBS News). CNN, as relayed by The Independent, and The New York Times, as cited by WCIV, reported White House pressure on the signers. Mace's own account differs. Asked on November 12 whether Trump had talked to her about the vote, she told WCIV, "He has not," and "We've played phone tag for the last 24 hours." On video from the Capitol steps that evening (LiveNOW from FOX), asked whether the president had asked her to take her name off, she said, "No, he has not. So we played phone tag last 24 hours." The Hill reported that Trump called her that morning and she missed it, that a source said White House staff had not reached out, and that she said she would not remove her name. Rep. Adelita Grijalva's signature that day was the 218th (CBS News, NBC News). Trump later urged a yes vote, and the House passed the bill 427 to 1 (CBS News). On her September 22, 2026 episode she said of the four signers, "every one of those four have been targeted for political annihilation." That is her claim; we found no independent account of what happened to each signer.

Items that are not breaks with Trump:

• 2021 and 2022: she voted to certify the 2020 election (CNN, January 7, 2021). In 2022 Trump endorsed her primary challenger, and CBS notes she "still prevailed."
• July 2024: she moved to force a vote to impeach Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned the next day (Politico and NPR). That targeted a Biden-era official after the shooting of Donald Trump. On the October 22 episode she calls it her "privileged motion."
• Oversight: the one fight that pits her against her own side is the Omar motion above.

What the other side said

Neither Trump nor Vance has named Mace. But their answers to the ad's critics read as aimed at people like her, and she was one of the most prominent of them. Vance said on October 21, the day Mace went on CNN, that he was "a little bit disgusted" to see Republicans "whining more about that advertisement" than about what Democrats want to do. NBC News ran that quote in the same article that quoted Mace's "most shameful, disgusting, offensive" line. Trump's reply came the next day. He named Gov. DeWine, accusing him of probably wanting "a Dumocrat to win," and told Ramaswamy to keep the ad up. He did not name Mace, Husted or any other Republican critic.

To be exact: no statement from Trump, Vance, the White House or a party committee mentions Mace by name, and we found nothing responding to her October 22 or October 27 podcast remarks. That their remarks were aimed at her is our reading, not something either of them said. It is not a quote.

What to watch

Her critique has an obvious asterisk: she has no race to lose. Critics will say the break is easy for someone who is leaving. Defenders will say the party's closing argument is exactly what she says it is. Both can be true. On November 3, Ohio decides whether the ad she called "political suicide" works, and South Carolina voters decide whether the Senate race she called a money problem is a real contest.

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Sources, retrieved October 27, 2026 unless noted: Epstein petition line: LiveNOW from FOX (Nov 12, 2025, video); The Hill (Sep 2 and Nov 12, 2025); CBS News (Nov 12 and Nov 19, 2025); NBC News (Nov 12, 2025); WCIV (Nov 12 and Nov 18, 2025); The Independent (Sep 25, 2025); Newsweek (Sep 3, 2025); Time (Nov 13, 2025); Get MACED episode of Sep 22, 2026; Get MACED episodes of Oct 22 and Oct 27; CNN clip of Mace's Oct 21 interview; CBS News (Oct 6, 22, 26, Jun 10); ABC News (Oct 25); NBC News (Oct 21, 24); WCIV (Oct 22); AP via PBS (Oct 22, Jun 23); New York Post (Jan 7); The Independent (Mar 26); Hindustan Times quoting Fox News Digital (Jul 25); myrtlebeachnews.com (Oct 20); DW (Oct 8); Politico and NPR (Jul 2024); CNN (Jan 7, 2021); Maceopedia dispatches of Sept 1 and Sept 16.