Nancy Mace

Early life and education

Mace was born at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to United States Army brigadier general James Emory Mace and schoolteacher Anne Mace. Her father served as commandant of cadets at The Citadel from 1997 to 2005.

In 1999, she became the first woman to graduate from the Citadel's Corps of Cadets program, earning a degree in business administration magna cum laude. She wrote the book In the Company of Men: A Woman at The Citadel (2001) about the experience.

In 2004, she earned a master's degree in journalism and mass communication from the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

In 2008, she founded the Mace Group, a public relations and consulting firm.

She became co-owner of the website FITSNews, which she had begun working for in 2007, and then sold her stake in 2013. The site covers South Carolina politics and current events.

Early political career

In 2012, Mace volunteered for the campaign of presidential candidate Ron Paul.

In August 2013, she announced her candidacy in the 2014 election for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in South Carolina. She received 19,560 votes (6.2% of the vote) in the primary election on June 10, 2014, behind Lindsey Graham (56.4%), Lee Bright (15.4%), Richard Cash (8.3%), and Det Bowers (7.3%).

She supported Donald Trump for president in 2016 as a coalitions director and field director for the campaign.

South Carolina House of Representatives

Elections

On September 18, 2017, Mace filed as a Republican to run in a special election for the South Carolina State House District 99 seat being vacated by Jimmy Merrill, who resigned earlier that month after an indictment and plea deal for several ethics violations. She received 49.5% of the vote in the November 14 Republican primary, 13 votes short of winning the nomination outright. She defeated the second-place finisher, Mount Pleasant town councilman Mark Smith, in the November 28 runoff, 63–37%.

Mace defeated Democrat Cindy Boatwright in the January 16, 2018, general election, with 2,066 votes to 1,587 (57–43%). She took office on January 23, 2018.

Mace defeated the Democratic nominee, Mount Pleasant resident Jen Gibson, in the November 6, 2018, general election.

Tenure

In 2019, Mace successfully advocated for the inclusion of exceptions for rape and incest in a bill for a six-week abortion ban that passed the South Carolina state house. In a speech on the state house floor, Mace revealed that she had been raped at age 16. She has said she opposes abortion but does not believe the government has the right to deny the procedure to a victim of rape or incest.

Mace co-sponsored a bill to oppose offshore drilling off South Carolina's coast. She opposed President Donald Trump's plan to offer oil drilling leases off South Carolina beaches.

The Conservation Voters of South Carolina gave Mace a 100% Lifetime rating for her voting record against offshore drilling and seismic testing. The South Carolina Club for Growth gave Mace its 2019 Tax Payer Hero Award.

In May 2020, Governor Henry McMaster signed into law Mace's prison reform bill, which ends the shackling of pregnant women in prison.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

In June 2019, Mace announced that she would seek the Republican nomination for South Carolina's 1st congressional district, centered in Charleston, and at the time represented by Democrat Joe Cunningham. Cunningham won the seat in 2018 in a surprise victory, winning a district Trump had carried by 13 percentage points two years earlier. Mace faced Mount Pleasant city councilwoman Kathy Landing and Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox in the June 9 Republican primary. During her primary campaign, she ran an advertisement stating she would "help President Trump take care of our veterans", and in which Vice President Mike Pence called her "an extraordinary American with an extraordinary lifetime of accomplishments—past, present and future." She won the primary with 57.5% of the vote.

Mace focused her campaign on banning offshore drilling off South Carolina's coast and restoring South Carolina's low country's economy.

Mace claimed Joe Cunningham was seeking trans equality in the Marine Corps which she claimed would shut down Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.

In the November general election, Mace defeated Cunningham. She assumed office on January 3, 2021.

Mace did not vote to impeach President Trump, but she criticized him for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. As a consequence, Trump endorsed former South Carolina representative Katie Arrington in the 2022 Republican primary for Mace's congressional seat. Mace defeated Arrington.

In the November general election, Mace defeated Democratic nominee Annie Andrews by 14 percentage points.

Mace ran for a third term and defeated Democratic candidate Michael B. Moore in the general election.

Tenure

Mace was one of seven Republicans who publicly refused to support their colleagues' efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021. These seven signed a letter that, while giving credence to Trump's allegations of electoral fraud, said Congress did not have the authority to influence the election's outcome. Mace was so concerned by the hostile atmosphere Trump was generating in the District of Columbia that she sent her children home to South Carolina before the congressional vote to accept the Electoral College votes.

After the 2021 United States Capitol attack, Mace pleaded with Trump to condemn it. While locked down in her Capitol office she told CBS News' Red & Blue host Elaine Quijano, "I'm begging the president to get off Twitter." Ultimately Mace voted against impeaching Trump, however, stating that due process had not been properly followed. She would later come to Trump's defense after he was indicted for mishandling classified documents.

In 2024, Mace endorsed Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries over Nikki Haley, who supported Mace in the 2022 primary.

In November 2021, Mace criticized fellow Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert for her anti-Muslim comments about Democrat Ilhan Omar.

On October 3, 2023, Mace voted in favor of removing Kevin McCarthy, a fellow Republican, from his position as speaker of the House. According to Mace, "McCarthy did not follow through on pushing her legislation to address the country's rape-kit backlog, expand access to birth control, adopt a balanced budget amendment and create an alert system that would notify people when there is a mass shooting". McCarthy, who had been a strong ally of Mace's, denied her claims. Following his ouster, Mace took to media, describing him as "a loser" who was "bored and doesn't know what to do with himself." Mace stated that she had never liked McCarthy since she joined Congress, baffling district Republicans who questioned why she had turned on her ally. Berkeley County Republican Party chair Victoria Cowart said "one of the sentiments I get the most is that she's talking out of both sides of her mouth."

On October 30, 2025, Mace was involved in an incident with law enforcement at Charleston International Airport in South Carolina, after the Charleston County Aviation Authority were late to meet her to escort her to her flight. She commented "Fucking incompetent" repeatedly and "this is no way to treat a fucking U.S. Representative". Mace's team claimed this was due to a concern for lax security and the representative's safety. Mace continued to accuse the airport security of "lies" after the incident. During the outburst, Mace commented that they "would never treat Tim Scott like this", which prompted senator Tim Scott and senator Lindsey Graham to publicly denounce Mace for her behavior.

Redistricting

South Carolina redrew its congressional map after the 2020 census showed significant population changes between districts. The NAACP challenged the map and a panel of three federal judges ruled in 2023 that Mace's congressional District 1 was redrawn in a "stark racial gerrymander" intended to suppress the power of Black voters. The redistricting moved 62% of Black Charleston County voters (a total of 30,000) from Mace's District 1 to District 6 — represented by Jim Clyburn, a Black Democrat who has held the seat for 30 years — and moved inland white voters into Mace's District 1.

The state appealed and, after hearing oral arguments in October 2023, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court's ruling in a 6–3 decision in May 2024, finding that the legislature's redistricting decisions were driven by partisan goals, specifically to increase District 1's Republican vote share, rather than by race. The Court emphasized that while race and partisan preference are highly correlated in South Carolina, the use of political data for partisan aims is not constitutionally prohibited even if it results in racial disparities. The Court also noted that the plaintiff's decision not to provide an alternative map was an "implicit concession" that it could not draw one that would prove racial discrimination while achieving the same partisan outcome. The dissenting justices argued that the majority's approach would make it significantly harder to challenge racial gerrymandering in the future. In response to the ruling, Mace stated, "It reaffirms everything everyone in South Carolina already knows, which is that the line wasn't based on race."

Congressional oversight

As chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, Mace has led congressional hearings on UAPs (also known as UFOs) and government transparency. In a July 2023 hearing, Mace questioned David Grusch, a former senior intelligence official and lead UAP analyst for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, about claims of recovered extraterrestrial spacecraft and biological remains.

In a November 2024 hearing, Mace criticized the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) for being "unable, or perhaps unwilling, to bring forward the truth about the government's activities concerning UAPs" and questioned why the government maintains such secrecy if there is "no big deal and there's nothing there."

Committee assignments

Committee on Armed Services

Committee on Oversight and Accountability

Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Caucus memberships

Congressional Blockchain Caucus

Climate Solutions Caucus

Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans

Congressional Wildlife Refuge Caucus

Problem Solvers Caucus

Rare Disease Caucus

Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Caucus

2026 South Carolina gubernatorial campaign

On August 4, 2025, Mace officially announced her bid for Governor of South Carolina in the 2026 election. She lost in the primary election and in choosing to run for governor, she vacated her seat in the 2026 United States House of Representatives elections. Without having won any county in the state, and being left on fifth place in her home county of Charleston, she stated that she will go "back to the private sector" after the end of her third term in Congress.

Mace became the third among the four Republican representatives who helped force the House to vote on the release of the Epstein files who will no longer hold an elected office after 2026.

Political positions

Abortion and contraception

Mace has supported efforts to limit access to abortion. In 2021, she cosponsored the Life at Conception Act, which would recognize a fertilized egg as a person with equal protections under the 14th Amendment and establish a nationwide abortion ban. Describing herself as "staunchly pro-life", she has also criticized abortion bans enacted in some states and called for Republicans to be more moderate on the issue, and said she would only support legislation that "has exceptions of rape or incest and the life of the mother". Expounding on her views, she stated: "The vast majority of people want some sort of gestational limits, ... not at nine months, but somewhere in the middle. They want exceptions for rape and incest. They want women to have access to birth control. These are all very common-sense positions that we can take and still be pro-life." Mace has voiced support for gestational limits of 15 to 20 weeks.

In 2021, Mace was among a handful of Republican representatives who did not sign onto an amicus brief to overturn Roe v. Wade. She criticized states enacting abortion bans without exceptions in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. In an interview on Face the Nation, she said she disagreed with the recently passed abortion ban in Florida, which was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis: "Signing a six-week ban that puts women who are victims of rape and girls who are victims of incest and in a hard spot isn't the way to change hearts and minds. It's not compassionate. The requirements [DeSantis] has for rape victims are too much, not something that I support. It's a non-starter. I am a victim of rape. I was raped by a classmate at the age of 16. I am very wary, and the devil is always in the details, but we've got to show more care and concern and compassion for women who've been raped. I don't like that this bill was signed in the dead of night".

In June 2021, Mace was one of 26 Republicans to vote for the Equal Access to Contraception for Veterans Act. In January 2023, Mace introduced the Standing with Moms Act, which would create a website, life.gov, that would link women to crisis pregnancy centers (non-profits established by anti-abortion groups primarily to persuade pregnant women not to have an abortion).

Agriculture

In March 2022, Mace and Representative Veronica Escobar introduced legislation to prohibit the confinement of pregnant pigs in gestation crates. In October 2023, Mace led a letter to the House Agriculture Committee by 16 House Republicans opposing the inclusion of language in the 2023 farm bill that would have overturned state farm animal welfare laws banning gestation crates and battery cages, including California's Proposition 12. The letter argued that the legislation would infringe on states' rights and disproportionately benefit foreign-owned agribusinesses like the Chinese-owned pork producer WH Group.

In recognition of her opposition to federal preemption of state agricultural laws and support for reforms to federal commodity checkoff programs, Mace received a leadership award from the Organization for Competitive Markets and Competitive Markets Action in February 2024. However, such checkoff program reforms have been a subject of disagreement among beef producers. In March 2024, Mace joined another House Republican letter opposing preemption of state agricultural laws, citing concerns about national security and foreign influence over the U.S. agricultural sector.

Animal welfare

Mace has been critical of scientific experimentation on animals, which she describes as "taxpayer funded animal cruelty". In April 2024, she introduced legislation to prohibit federal funding for experiments on dogs and cats. In May 2024, in response to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem admitting to shooting her pet dog, Mace co-founded the Congressional Dog Lovers Caucus alongside Representatives Jared Moskowitz and Susan Wild. In May 2025, Mace authored legislation to require that animals used in federal research laboratories be relocated or put up for adoption rather than killed.

In May 2021, Mace and Representative Rosa DeLauro introduced legislation to ban the farming of mink for fur, citing evidence that mink farming promotes the spread of zoonotic disease. Mace described the practice of mink farming as "inhumane". The legislation was passed by the House of Representatives as an amendment to the America COMPETES Act of 2022 but was not included in the Senate version of the bill and did not become law.

In 2024, Mace was the lead author of the "Snowmobiles Aren't Weapons Act" which would prohibit running over and killing wildlife in some federal land. According to a statement released by the representatives' office, "Our federal lands are not battlegrounds for reckless and belligerent behavior. This bill will preserve the safety and beauty of our natural spaces and ensure wildlife can thrive without the threat of harm from motor vehicles."

In 2025, Mace was one of 14 representatives who signed a Republican letter against the "Save Our Bacon Act". In the letter, it was stated that legislation like the "Save Our Bacon Act" would "erode states' rights, undermine family farmers, and expand foreign influence over U.S. food production."

Washington, D.C., statehood

In April 2021, Mace voiced her opposition to a Democratic proposal to grant the District of Columbia statehood. She argued that Washington, D.C., was too small to qualify as a state, saying, "D.C. wouldn't even qualify as a singular congressional district."

Debt ceiling

On May 31, 2023, Mace was among 71 House Republicans who voted against the final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 to raise the debt ceiling. Mace was one of three Republican members of the Problem Solvers Caucus who voted against raising the debt ceiling that day. Two days later she appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast to claim, "the American people were spoon-fed a bed of lies" regarding the measure.

Extraterrestrial life

Mace has stated she believes space aliens have "been interacting with humanity".

In an interview with OutKick, Mace cited the cases of Bob Lazar and David Grusch to conclude that explanations of UFO sightings that did not involve space aliens "didn't add up".

During the 2024 United States drone sightings Mace said she would not rule out the purported drones were from "outer space" or "outside the universe". A joint investigation by civilian and military agencies of the U.S. government failed to find "anything anomalous" and said that sightings included mistaken aircraft and other objects. State and local law enforcement as well as numerous independent experts reported similar conclusions.

Foreign policy

During the prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mace wrote an article opposing military intervention in the conflict.

In 2025, Mace supported President Trump's proposal to send U.S. troops to take control of the Gaza Strip.

Healthcare

During her 2014 U.S. Senate campaign, Mace said "We must use any means possible to repeal, defund, and ultimately stop Obamacare" because it will "suffocate individual liberty and further stifle economic growth".

Islam

Mace stated on August 9, 2026, that she was a "total Islamaphobe", in response to a tweet from Representative Pramilla Jayapal criticizing Mace's belief that Muslims holding political office in the United States are all a "trojan horse".

LGBTQ rights

Mace, while initially supportive of LGBTQ rights when first elected to the House, shifted to a significantly more hostile position around and after the 2024 presidential election campaign.

In 2021, the Washington Examiner wrote that Mace "is a supporter of both religious liberty and gay marriage." Later that year, she told the Examiner, "I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality. No one should be discriminated against." She opposed the Equality Act, instead co-sponsoring a Republican alternative called the Fairness for All Act. Mace was one of 31 Republicans to vote for the LGBTQ Business Equal Credit Enforcement and Investment Act in 2021, and sponsored H.R.5776 – Serving Our LGBTQ Veterans Act, legislation establishing a Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Veterans within the Department of Veterans Affairs, also in 2021.

In July 2022, Mace was among 47 Republican representatives who voted in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act, which protects existing same-sex and interracial marriages under federal law. She later said, "If gay couples want to be as happily or miserably married as straight couples, more power to them. Trust me, I've tried it more than once."

Starting in 2025, Mace began making more statements critical of gays and lesbians in public life, calling for books with LGBTQ themes to be banned from schools and libraries. Mace frequently accuses gay and lesbian couples of grooming children, and has repeatedly referred to the Charleston County Public Library as a "grooming center".

In March 2025, Mace criticized U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin for reading aloud from a children's book about LGBT tolerance, saying "The Left gets mad when we call them groomers but then continue to do this."

On November 18, 2024, Mace introduced a resolution to prohibit "Members, officers, and employees of the House of Representatives" from using single-sex facilities (like restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms) in the Capitol or House Office Buildings that do not correspond to their biological sex. She specified in her press release that the bill was intended for transgender women, and said in an interview that newly elected Delaware representative Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of the United States Congress, was "absolutely" the target of her bathroom resolution. Mace described McBride as a "biological man trying to force himself into women's spaces" and as a "guy in a skirt", later following this up by saying "It's offensive that a man in a skirt thinks that he is my equal".

Marijuana legalization

In 2021, Mace introduced the States Reform Act to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and regulate it similarly to alcohol. She said: "This bill supports veterans, law enforcement, farmers, businesses, those with serious illnesses, and it is good for criminal justice reform. ... The States Reform Act takes special care to keep Americans and their children safe while ending federal interference with state cannabis laws."

Towards other political figures

On October 21, 2021, Mace was one of nine House Republicans who voted to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to appear before the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Explaining her vote, Mace said she was being "consistent" and wanted to retain the exercise of "the power to subpoena" in the event that Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in 2022.

Mace opposed the first attempt to remove Liz Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference, saying, "We should not be silencing voices of dissent. That is one of the reasons we are in this today, is that we have allowed QAnon conspiracy theorists to lead us." In early May, Mace appeared at fundraiser events with Cheney. During the second attempt to remove Cheney as chair, however, Mace voted to remove her.

On August 15, 2024, Mace received nationally circulated criticism for repeatedly mispronouncing Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris' name after initially pronouncing her name correctly. After saying "Kamala" correctly, Mace began to mispronounce the name and, when corrected by other CNN panelists, Mace said "I will say Kamala's name any way that I want to."

Following the victory of Zohran Mamdani in the 2025 New York City Democratic mayoral primary, Mace wrote "After 9/11 we said 'Never Forget.' I think we sadly have forgotten." After Mamdani was elected mayor, Mace said in a fundraising email that he was "bringing Sharia law to America", a false accusation according to PolitiFact.

Mace was one of eight Republicans who voted for the removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House and the only one of those eight not considered a far-right politician by a 538 analysis of the 118th Congress. She fell in the "Compromise Conservatives" cluster instead, which the analysis noted tended to vote against hard-right messaging amendments but oppose bipartisan spending bills. Mace said she voted to vacate McCarthy out of distrust.

Mace worked for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, but strongly condemned his actions surrounding the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack. She asserted that Trump's legacy had been "wiped out" and that he should be held "accountable" for his actions. She later voted against impeaching him, and, in 2024, endorsed him in the Republican presidential primary.

Personal life

Mace's first marriage was to Chris Niemiec, a lawyer and JAG Corps officer in the United States Air Force Reserve. After they divorced, Mace married Curtis Jackson, with whom she had two children. They divorced in 2019.

Mace became engaged to Patrick Bryant in 2022, but the couple broke up in 2023. She said that she broke off the engagement after finding Bryant on a dating app, a claim he denied. In a February 2025 speech in the House of Representatives, she accused Bryant and three other men of physical abuse, rape, and sexual misconduct against her and other women. All the men denied her accusations. Patrick Bryant, her ex-fiancé, claimed she had voiced the accusations only in Congress in order to shield herself from the legal liability to which she would be exposed had she made the accusations anywhere else. The following month, one of the men Mace accused, Brian Musgrave, sued her for defamation.

Mace resides on Daniel Island in Charleston. On June 1, 2021, the Charleston Police Department opened an investigation after Mace's home was vandalized with profanity, three anarchy symbols, and graffiti in support of the PRO Act.

Mace is a non-denominational Christian. She has attended Seacoast Church, a South Carolina-based megachurch.