One of the beloved Beltway narratives of the past few months has been that ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is engaged in a “revenge tour” aimed at utilizing primary challenges to punish the “crazy eight” House Republicans who voted to eject him last October. Stop one on the supposed tour was the coastal South Carolina district of Nancy Mace, an attention-grabbing and sometimes erratic congresswoman who survived a Donald Trump–backed purge effort two years ago over her criticism of his behavior on January 6. She then helped deep-six McCarthy. His efforts to return the favor didn’t work out.
After athletic efforts to curry favor with the 45th president, Mace had the MAGA imprimatur this time around, while the vengeful McCarthy lined up support for challenger Catherine Templeton, best known as the union-hating Nikki Haley’s union-bashing state labor department director. Templeton also lost a 2018 gubernatorial primary to Haley’s successor (and Trump friend), Henry McMaster, but did manage to let it be known she supported Trump against Haley prior to this year’s South Carolina presidential primary. Her baggage didn’t deter McCarthy, though, as NBC News reported:
McCarthy boosted Templeton’s campaign, spending $10,000 through his political action committee, Majority Committee PAC. Another PAC with ties to McCarthy, the American Prosperity Alliance, contributed $15,000 to South Carolina Patriots PAC, an organization that has spent over $2.1 million to defeat Mace and over $400,000 to support Templeton.
Despite the money and Templeton’s rep as a doctrinaire conservative, Mace dispatched her by nearly a two-to-one margin. More important, she did well enough to avoid a runoff despite a third candidate in the race. McCarthy will have other opportunities for revenge (notably next week in Virginia, where he is on the same side as Trump in trying to purge House Freedom Caucus chair Bob Good), but his “tour” is not off to a good start.
The Mace-Templeton result highlighted a banner night of primary wins for Trump-backed candidates. In other South Carolina races, Trump’s support almost certainly clinched a close win for scandal-plagued U.S. House incumbent William Timmons, and longtime MAGA stalwart and Black televangelist Mark Burns finished first and is in a GOP runoff for an open seat. In North Dakota, congressman Kelly Armstrong, Trump’s endorsee to succeed VP prospect Doug Burgum as governor, routed Burgum’s own candidate and lieutenant governor, Tammy Miller. In Nevada, a late Trump endorsement helped party Establishment favorite Sam Brown easily win a Senate primary; he will face Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen in November in one of the contests that will determine control of the chamber. There’s one uncalled House race in Nevada, where a Trump-backed candidate is holding on to a narrow lead, and if he wins, the former president will have a clean sweep in the June 11 primaries, as befits his position as the dominant force in the Republican Party. A former House Speaker like Kevin McCarthy really can’t compete.
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