Nancy Mace, the Republican congresswoman from South Carolina now running for governor, showed up ready to give a fiery speech Thursday night. The problem? Almost nobody showed up to hear it.
According to My Horry News, only eight people were in the audience for an event hosted by the right-wing group Moms for Liberty. Organizers had reportedly hoped hundreds of people would show. When it became clear the seats would stay empty, Mace backed out of the speech and slipped backstage. She later tried to save face by mingling with the few attendees and speaking briefly with reporters.
This is the same Nancy Mace who declared at her campaign launch: “I didn’t come to join the club. They don’t want me, and I don’t want them.” She added, “They said stay quiet; I spoke up. They said sit down; I stood up. They said play nice, and I fought back.”
But it seems the crowd didn’t care.
Mace, one of five Republicans vying to replace outgoing Governor Henry McMaster, has leaned hard into Trump-style politics—calling herself “Trump in heels” and pleading publicly for the president’s support.
Despite the empty seats, Mace told reporters at the event that her campaign is “winning by double digits everywhere, but particularly with folks who support the president.”
Still, her headline-chasing tactics keep backfiring.
Just two weeks ago, she snapped at a reporter during a town hall in Myrtle Beach after being fact-checked over her vote against the Inflation Reduction Act—legislation she tried to take credit for.
“You’re very confused,” Mace fired back. “You’re a raging Democrat… a raging leftist with that kind of questioning. And I would say, as a woman, like, you might wanna think about how you view other women.”
She also sparked outrage online after saying she likes to relax by watching ICE deportation raids—an attempt at political showboating that flopped hard and drew comparisons to “head ICE Barbie.”
Now, with empty chairs and awkward headlines piling up, Mace’s campaign is looking less like a grassroots movement and more like a one-woman show no one’s watching.
