A look at the 1st District battle over endorsements, money and a 13-year-old law

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) speaks to reporters as she leaves the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 27, 2023, in Washington, DC. (File/Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Even for the experts, it is hard to tell what the deciding factor might be in the Republican primary between U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace and her chief rival, Catherine Templeton, in the coastal 1st Congressional District.

The two-term incumbent, Mace, is touting her support from former President Donald Trump in the only congressional district in South Carolina where a majority of presidential primary voters chose his GOP rival, former Gov. Nikki Haley.

It’s also a district where, just two years ago, she defeated her Trump-backed challenger. So, it’s unclear how much weight Trump’s endorsement carries for the fast-growing district that spans South Carolina’s southern coastline and is considered the only one possible for a flip.   

And, while Mace had nearly a million dollars more available to spend than Templeton as of the last campaign filings, Templeton outraised her in the first quarter of the year. Templeton also has a massive amount of outside independent spending on her side, far more than Mace.

But the former director of South Carolina’s licensing and public health agencies has also hit unforeseen stumbling blocks: In April, Templeton’s 18-year-old son, Hampton, was arrested for first-degree assault, accused of beating up a classmate outside a party in January. It was his second arrest in seven months, though a road rage incident in September was dropped, according to reporting by The Post and Courier.

“You typically don’t want to bet against incumbents because they’ve won before, they have the name recognition, they have the fundraising advantage typically,” said Gibbs Knotts, dean of humanities and social sciences at the College of Charleston.

But a well-funded challenge like Templeton’s is rare, he said.

Knotts and other political observers think the GOP primary will come down to grassroots efforts to turn out supporters in what could be a low-turnout election in a primary without any statewide offices on the ballot. They’re unclear on who will benefit if turnout is higher and how news of Templeton’s son will play out, particularly since his first court appearance is just days before the primary.

“I think it’s fascinating that Mace won last time (in 2022), maybe in part because she didn’t get the Trump endorsement, but this time she has the Trump endorsement,” Knotts said.

Besides Templeton, Mace is also being challenged by Bill Young, a Marine veteran and nonprofit executive who’s raised little money. Mace has focused her attention on Templeton.

Policy differences?

There aren’t any major differences in their positions. For example, both say similar things when it comes to illegal immigration, a key concern for voters nationwide. Both want to secure the border and finish a border wall. Both support presenting identification in order to vote — which is already law in South Carolina. 

There are nuances in how far to the right they’re willing to go. 

Templeton says she’s “100% pro-life” without saying exactly what she means by that. Mace, a rape survivor, supports abortion ban exceptions for the life of the mother and in cases of rape and incest.  

Templeton says she stands for Second Amendment rights with “no exceptions, no apologies,” also without details. Again, Mace is more specific. Protecting gun rights, she says, needs to include technology upgrades to criminal databases so that federal background checks for people wanting to purchase a gun catch anything that should cause a denial — and quickly. She also says local law enforcement should be able to use a “threat matrix” to determine when someone might be a threat.

“I’m not sure they’re that far apart on most of the issues,” said Danielle Vinson, a political science professor at Furman University. “I still think this comes down to more of a race about style than substance.”

While fairly bipartisan, Mace can also be unpredictable. She caught a lot of flak from Republicans for joining the hard right flank of the House GOP in helping to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last fall. Templeton, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018, is a fairly traditional conservative, according to Vinson.

Family matters

Neither candidate has publicly addressed the arrest of Templeton’s son. Mace has not made it a campaign issue. Templeton’s campaign did not respond to the SC Daily Gazette’s requests for comment either.

But it has certainly gotten public attention.

After his arrest in April, Hampton Templeton was fired from his mom’s campaign. An arrest report provided to the Gazette includes statements from multiple witnesses saying Hampton started the fight. And the victim was beaten so badly, he was taken to the hospital after suffering seizures. His first court appearance is set for June 7, four days before the primary. 

But the alleged assault may not have much impact on the primary. 

Vinson said Hampton is likely old enough that most voters will be able to separate his actions from his mother, especially if Catherine Templeton is not seen as intervening on his behalf. Other political observers interviewed by the SC Daily Gazette said voters will base their choice on other national issues such as immigration.

“I don’t think it’ll have a big impact,” Elizabeth Connors, a University of South Carolina political science professor, said of the arrest.

The importance that voters are putting on immigration — in contests up and down the ballot — helps explain why Mace and Templeton have sparred so much over a 13-year-old state law.

Although Templeton was never a state lawmaker, she touts her role in strengthening an illegal immigration bill signed in 2011 while she oversaw the state’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. The law, which required employers to check the legal status of their hires through a federal database, was upheld by the courts. After Templeton aired an advertisement taking credit for the law, Mace sent a cease-and-desist letter to the television stations that aired it, claiming the ads were false. 

A spokesperson for Mace declined to elaborate on the response to the campaign’s cease-and-desist letter. 

“The people of SC 1 know the truth, that Nancy Mace is for stronger border security,” Gabrielle Lipsky wrote in an email to the SC Daily Gazette.   

Mark Owens, a political science professor at The Citadel, said voters are unlikely to parse the details of a law passed more than a decade ago, especially if they’ve moved here since. But the immigration issue and Templeton’s experience are relevant. And while Mace has a large advantage as the incumbent, the attacks from Templeton could have an impact.

If an incumbent goes through a beating in the primary from a well-financed challenger, “sometimes those tend to land,” he said. 

Campaign cash

Templeton has the resources to try.

She outraised Mace in the first quarter of this year, after announcing her primary in February and before the arrest of her son. But Mace remained well ahead on total cash available: $1.3 million to $370,000, as of March 31, the most recent quarterly filings due.  

Mace, for her part, has accused Templeton of being a “puppet” of McCarthy.

“When the dark money groups are forced to disclose, you’ll see that Kevin McCarthy and his Allies are behind this effort here as well as several other districts,” wrote Lipsky, again without elaborating.

The Gazette could find no endorsement of Templeton by McCarthy, and neither McCarthy nor his political action committee donated to Templeton in the last quarter. McCarthy’s PAC did contribute $10,000 to Mace’s campaign last year, before she joined the effort to remove him from leadership.

However, there has been a large amount of spending on the race by outside PACs — tenth-highest amount spent so far in any of the 435 congressional races happening this year, according to the website Open Secrets. And most of that is supporting Templeton. These organizations can accept donations of any size but cannot coordinate with the campaign of the candidate they are supporting. And money could be coming indirectly from McCarthy allies. 

According to Open Secrets and federal election filings, Mace has received $547,000 in outside spending. But outside groups have spent almost $2.4 million to support Templeton and oppose Mace, as of Tuesday.

Two of these groups, South Carolina Patriots PAC and Lowcountry Conservatives, have spent over $1.9 million alone on the race. Both organizations were set up in early March. The only donation either PAC has reported publicly is $15,000 from American Prosperity Alliance, a political nonprofit.

In April, Politico reported that the American Prosperity Alliance is organized by allies of McCarthy. The organization has directly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads attacking congressional representatives who helped oust McCarthy including $330,000 against Mace, according to Politico.

Bill Young, a Marine veteran and nonprofit executive, is running for the 1st Congressional District Republican nomination (Provided by the Bill Young campaign/SC Daily Gazette)

Endorsements

In a year without any statewide elections on the ballot, primaries could be decided by not that many voters, said Vinson, the Furman professor.

So, endorsements may matter more.

Other than Trump, Mace’s backers include current House Speaker Mike Johnson, who won the position after McCarthy was voted out. 

“In the past, the speakers of the parties don’t typically get involved,” Owens said. “But that is something that we’re seeing in politics right now, that the speaker is trying to come to the aid of incumbents.”

In fact, Mace is not the only South Carolina incumbent to receive Johnson’s endorsement. In the upstate, U.S. Rep. William Timmons is facing a primary challenge from state Rep. Adam Morgan, chairman of the hardline Freedom Caucus in the Statehouse. Timmons, like Mace, has received the endorsement of both Trump and Johnson. 

Templeton, meanwhile, has been endorsed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich from neighboring Georgia, who won South Carolina’s GOP presidential primary in 2012.

A three-way race

Young, the third candidate in the race, sees an opportunity in the back and forth.

“We’re seeing, you know, who wrote an immigration bill? We’re not seeing: What are solutions in the Lowcountry,” he said.

Young, of Charleston, said he started thinking about running in October. He has a range of priorities, from the border and foreign affairs to education, veterans’ services and protecting the shrimping industry. He criticizes Mace as not accomplishing much, despite what she says about working hard.  

This is Young’s first run for office, and as of the end of March he had raised just over $11,000. But he still thinks he can draw votes away from Templeton and Mace and win in a runoff after the primary.

“I’m not concerned with the dollars,” he said. “I’m concerned with the messaging. I’m concerned about the Lowcountry, and I’m concerned with getting our issues out in front of people.”

Democrats in the race

If any district in South Carolina has a chance to flip, it is the 1st District. The district was represented for one term by Democrat Joe Cunningham, before Mace flipped it back red in 2020. And it got more Republican by the post-census redrawing of district lines. 

A challenge to the congressional lines is still being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. A lower federal court ruled the new lines discriminated against Black voters. However, since the nation’s high court has yet to reach a final decision, that same court allowed this year’s election to proceed with the lines as approved by legislators in 2021.

Of South Carolina’s seven House seats, the 1st District is the only one considered even possible for a flip by the Cook Political Report, a non-partisan political analysis publication. It’s labeled “likely Republican,” which means it’s not considered competitive at this point but has “the potential to become engaged.” 

“A Democrat has to run almost a perfect campaign, and the Republican has to really mess up,” Knotts, the College of Charleston dean, said of what could swing the district. It would probably need a national trend in favor of Democrats as well, he said.  

Two candidates are running for the Democratic nomination: Michael B. Moore and Mac Deford. 

Moore is a businessman and former CEO of the International African American Museum. He is also the great-great grandson of Robert Smalls, a Civil War hero, Reconstruction-era state legislator and five-term congressman. Deford is a Coast Guard veteran and attorney who most recently served as attorney for the town of Hilton Head Island.

Both have raised significant funds, and both point to Haley winning the district in February with 52.5% of GOP primary voters — nearly 6 percentage points over Trump.

Moore, who’s been running for about a year, had raised almost $600,000, as of the last campaign filings. Deford has raised $282,000 in a short amount of time. He officially announced his candidacy in mid-March. 

“Democratic voters want to know which candidate likely has the potential to win,” Owens, the Citadel professor, said. “Winning in this case matters more, and politics can follow later.”

In addition to the fundraising numbers, Moore said he has a strong ground game, an experienced campaign team, and is focused on voters of color in the district. 

“When Nikki Haley beat Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary, what that told me was that there was an even larger universe of potential voters than we even imagined,” Moore told the Gazette. “We think we have a good chance to sneak up on whoever comes out of the right.”

While he’s disappointed that there’s been no ruling from the nation’s high court on district boundaries, Moore said he’s planned all along to run a campaign as if there would be no change in the lines.

“Anyone who takes on an incumbent has to acknowledge … you’re coming in as an underdog. But we’re trying to overcome those disadvantages, and we’ll see how it all works out,” he said.

Deford too sees a way to win the seat as a Democrat, based in part on the vote for Haley in the primary. 

“There is a lot of discontent with politics right now, especially within the Republican Party,” Deford wrote to the Gazette in an email. “We are confident of defeating either Nancy Mace or Catherine Templeton, as both are too extreme for the Lowcountry.”

He criticized Mace as too negative in her campaigning. He believes the ongoing back and forth between Mace and Templeton will help the Democrat. 

“Instead of discussing policy differences or explaining how she might begin to represent the Lowcountry effectively, Mace opts for below-the-belt attacks,” Deford wrote.

Deford and More have slightly different policy priorities. 

Deford highlights access to healthcare and abortion and investments in jobs. He says he wants to strike a balance between border security and “efficient pathways for immigrants to obtain permanent residency and citizenship.”

Moore pointed to the environment and maintaining social security as priorities, along with access to abortion. 

“Women are pissed off about the fact that they’ve got less autonomy over their own body than they have over the last 50 years,” he said.

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