Representative Nancy Mace is shortly going to find herself out of a job. Which is why she is angling for another one.

The congresswoman from South Carolina has had six years in the House of Representatives, but Mace initially broke into the political arena looking to unseat Lindsey Graham in 2013. She, of course, did not succeed, and went on to be elected to the state House, and then the U.S. House.

Nancy Mace has always wanted higher office for herself, though, and ran for governor of South Carolina this year, as Henry McMaster is term-limited and there were several Republican candidates looking to succeed him. However, she was heavily leaning on getting President Trump’s endorsement during the gubernatorial primary… which did not work out for her.

President Trump endorsed (Lt. Governor Pamela) Evette in the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Henry McMaster on May 29, in a massive blow to the four other Republicans in the primary field, including Mace.

The competition for the coveted endorsement from the commander-in-chief was fierce and a focal point of the race.

Throughout the primary campaign, Mace and Evette, in particular, attempted to position themselves as the most Trump-aligned candidate in the race.

Both prominently featured Trump on campaign material well before the president made an endorsement in the race.

“It’s good to have President Trump’s back,” Evette said last August, in her first campaign ad of the cycle. “I’ve backed him from Day One.”

Mace, who touts her 2024 congressional campaign endorsement from Trump on her social media and website, accused Evette at the time of misleading voters.

“Pamela Evette is NOT ENDORSED by DONALD TRUMP. Do not believe her LIES,” the congresswoman fumed in an X post the same day the president would go on to back Evette in the race.

Evette had been the front-runner in the race in the weeks leading up to Trump’s endorsement, according to polling.

And them Mace finished FIFTH in that primary. With that, Nancy Mace was going to be out of a job next year, since she withdrew from running for reelection to her House seat in order to run for governor.

But then Lindsey Graham’s untimely death put his Senate seat back into the mix, with nearly every single available South Carolina Republican’s name being thrown out there as a replacement. Initially, the thought was that McMaster would give a “leg up” to whomever he (and President Trump) wanted to win the seat permanently in November by appointing that person now. And Nancy Mace was paying attention. In the middle of posting tributes to Lindsey Graham on Sunday morning, she tossed this in.

“Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in…” pic.twitter.com/1AzRMPAEuc

— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) July 12, 2026

However, any hopes she – or anyone else – had were neatly sidestepped with McMaster and Trump deciding that the seat should go to Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone. And even Mace had the smarts to realize that backing this choice was a prudent one.

I wholeheartedly support the President in his recommendation. What a wonderful idea! pic.twitter.com/rBwk8aTSlj

— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) July 13, 2026

But everyone knows that Nordone is only holding the seat until the next general election – which means Nancy Mace is looking at the seat she once wanted again.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is “strongly considering” a run for U.S. Senate following the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), two sources familiar with her thinking told Axios.

One of the sources familiar with Mace’s thinking characterized her mindset as “YOLO,” or “you only live once.”

Mace’s team plans to get a poll in the field on Monday gauging her viability, the second source said.

Her viability is definitely in question. Mace has not won herself any friends during her time in Congress. In no particular order, she made a fool of herself at a prayer breakfast, she has called out her ex-fiancee on the House floor (where she was protected from prosecution) for sexual abuse, she helped undermine then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy and tossed the entire caucus into chaos, and she used the Epstein files issue to grandstand – and acquired questionable allies along the way.

The weekend after Trump made his endorsement of Evette, Mace said she texted a friend who would understand her predicament: Massie. “I let him know that I didn’t get the endorsement, and we all know why,” she told POLITICO.

But Massie had already taken to social media.

“Although virtually all Republicans eventually admitted by their votes that it was right to release the Epstein files, only three were brave enough to sign my discharge petition to force that vote. [Lauren] Boebert, [Marjorie Taylor] Greene, and Mace have paid an enormous price for doing the right thing,” he said in a post on X. Greene resigned from Congress earlier this year after clashes with Trump over Epstein and the economy, and Trump recently called for a primary challenge to Boebert after she campaigned with Massie ahead of the Kentucky primary.

With the Senate seat open and her House seat gone, Nancy Mace is definitely interested. But the reality is that she has a whole lot of baggage and already lost a statewide race. Mace would like to blame Donald Trump for all that.

Mace, who is leaving Congress at the end of her term in January, appeared on NewsNation on Monday night, where Chris Cuomo asked if she will run in the special election to replace former Sen. Lindsey Graham (R), who died on Saturday, on the ballot. On Monday, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (R) appointed Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone (R), to finish out the term, which expires in January. An Aug. 11 special election will determine which Republican will face off against Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, a physician.

“Will you run in the special election?” Cuomo asked.

Mace dodged the question, stating, “My focus right now is focusing on South Carolina.”

Cuomo then pivoted to her “righteous break” with Trump over the Epstein files, but noted that it could prove pivotal should she decide to run for Senate.

“But could that be enough to ruin your chances?” he asked.

“It may have ended my political career, Chris,” Mace replied.

“You said it,” the host responded.

Mace said she enjoys “calling out Democrats and Republicans alike,” though she added, “I got my butt beat in the governor’s race, ok? So, you know, those are all things that you sort of weigh.”

The person Nancy Mace really needs to blame is the person who looks back at her in the mirror. Donald Trump didn’t make her act the fool, or accuse her ex of sex trafficking on the House floor, or wear a Scarlet Letter around Congress, or side with Matt Gaetz over Kevin McCarthy. Is it Trump’s fault that she acts unhinged in public, to the point where people speculate about her mental health?

Mace is a 48-year-old twice-divorced mother of two. She often walks with a gun. She sometimes shops in a wig. She always sleeps (the little she sleeps) under a 20-pound heavy blanket she thinks isn’t heavy enough. She says she does what she does because of “an engine” that she “can’t control” and that “just fucking goes” and is “going to go and go and go.” She says she gets the tattoos that she gets because of “the pain that I need to feel.”

And in the wake of her shocking speech last year in which she on the floor of the United States House of Representatives accused her ex-fiancé and three of his business partners and friends of grievous sexual crimes against her and other women — in the spiraling subsequent litigation in which alleged abusers are suing Mace and other alleged victims and vice versa and a judge instituted a gag order for all parties involved and Mace has taken to representing herself — she at times has all but asked to get sent to jail.

She is, according to scores of ex-staffers and ex-friends, operatives and colleagues from both parties and a spectrum of people who know her and have known her for a long time, “unstable” and “unhinged” and “unwell.”

“Something snapped in her mentally,” Charleston-based Republican consultant Chris Drummond told me.

“I hope that she gets the help that she needs,” Charleston-based Democratic consultant Renee Harvey told me.

“You’ll drive yourself crazy,” Democratic state senator Ed Sutton warned me, “trying to understand a crazy person.”

Does Nancy Mace have a compelling personal trauma that she has used repeatedly while campaigning? Yes. Does that mean she gets to lash out and act as she does, using that same trauma as a shield? No. Congress is neither a place to grow old gracefully or fix your own personal or mental health problems. Nancy Mace needs to figure out what to do with the rest of her life, without elected office, or cameras in her face, or Donald Trump to blame.

Featured image: Representative Nancy Mace, official Congressional portrait, cropped, public domain