Rep. Nancy Mace is not backing down. Days before South Carolina's Republican gubernatorial primary on June 10, the congresswoman told Fox News Digital that President Donald Trump's endorsement of Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette has barely moved the needle, and she tied the snub directly to her own vote to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mace's comments, reported by Fox News Digital ahead of Tuesday's primary, frame the race as far from settled. Trump endorsed Evette last week, just as early voting was getting underway. But Mace argued the endorsement did little to consolidate the field or quiet grassroots opposition.
"It's not going over well for her with the grassroots, which is why she didn't get much of a bump," Mace said. "She got maybe a five point bump, not much."
The South Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary features a packed roster. Beyond Mace and Evette, the field includes Attorney General Alan Wilson, Rep. Ralph Norman, and businessman Rom Reddy. Current Gov. Henry McMaster is term-limited and has endorsed Evette as his potential successor, a move Trump reinforced when he posted his own backing last week.
Trump's endorsement was characteristically direct. He called Evette "a good friend, fighter, and WINNER" who "will be a terrific Governor of South Carolina." He added that he expected Evette would choose McMaster's son, Henry McMaster Jr., as her lieutenant governor.
But Mace predicted that endorsement wouldn't be enough to avoid a runoff. Under South Carolina's rules, if no candidate wins a majority on Tuesday, the top two finishers advance to a second round. Mace said she believes Evette will end up in that runoff, and that once she does, "all bets are off."
"It's a dog fight," Mace said. "We're in it and I'm gonna fight to the death."
What makes this intra-party clash more than a standard endorsement dispute is Mace's own explanation for why she was passed over. She did not hold back: she believes her push to release Department of Justice files on Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell cost her Trump's support.
Last year, Mace was one of four Republicans to sign a petition forcing a House vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act. That measure urged the Department of Justice to publish millions of documents related to its probe into Epstein and Maxwell. It was a move that put her at odds with leadership in her own party, and, she now says, with the president himself.
"I knew it was on the line when I voted to release the Epstein files, and I'm a survivor. If the price to pay for an endorsement was to not release those files, I would never pay it."
That framing puts Mace in an unusual position. She is running in a Republican primary where Trump's word carries enormous weight, yet she is openly challenging the value of his endorsement, while simultaneously casting herself as the candidate who refused to trade principle for political favor.
Mace's claim that grassroots Republicans are "very upset" with Trump's endorsement decision is, for now, her assertion alone. No independent polling data or organized opposition was cited to back it up. Her estimate that Evette received only a five-point bump from the endorsement is likewise her own read of the race, not a figure tied to a named survey.
That doesn't mean she's wrong. South Carolina's Republican electorate is famously independent-minded, and crowded primaries often resist consolidation around a single endorsement, even one from a sitting president. The presence of a sitting attorney general and a sitting congressman in the same field suggests that no single lane has cleared.
But voters will decide Tuesday whether Mace's framing holds or whether Trump's endorsement carries the day for Evette. If the race does go to a runoff, the dynamics shift entirely. A two-candidate contest strips away the noise of a crowded field and forces a direct argument over who best represents South Carolina conservatives.
Mace's decision to center her campaign narrative around the Epstein files vote is a calculated bet. On one hand, transparency around the Epstein case has broad appeal across the political spectrum. The idea that powerful people shielded themselves from accountability resonates with the same populist instincts that fueled Trump's own rise. Mace, who has publicly identified as a survivor, lends personal weight to the argument.
On the other hand, framing a presidential endorsement snub as retaliation for a congressional vote is a serious charge, one that implies the endorsement process is transactional in ways that cut against the image of a president acting on policy alignment and electability.
Mace did not hesitate to draw that line. "I disagree with this endorsement," she said. "And I'm going to vote for myself. I'm asking voters in South Carolina to vote for me as well on Tuesday."
The June 10 primary will test several questions at once. Can a Trump endorsement clear a crowded Republican field in a state where the governor's mansion is genuinely open? Can a candidate who openly broke with the president on a high-profile vote survive, or even thrive, by running on that break? And does the Epstein transparency issue carry enough grassroots energy to offset the institutional advantages that come with backing from both the sitting president and the outgoing governor?
Evette has the endorsements. McMaster has blessed her candidacy. Trump posted his full-throated support. The establishment lane is as clear as it gets.
Mace has her vote, her story, and her willingness to fight in public. Whether South Carolina Republican voters reward that kind of defiance, or punish it, will say something about the state of the party heading into 2026.
In politics, endorsements open doors. They don't always close races. Tuesday will show whether South Carolina voters are still making up their own minds.
