US Rep Nancy Mace joins race for South Carolina governor

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Representative Nancy Mace said on Monday she was joining the 2026 Republican race to become South Carolina governor, announcing her candidacy in a video that portrays her as a “firebrand” who has been praised by President Donald Trump.

Mace criticized Trump for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol, but she has since embraced his MAGA movement. She endorsed Trump, a fellow Republican, in his 2024 presidential run.

The online video announcing her candidacy featured a string of commentary about Mace.

“She’s a fighter. I know about that. She’s a fighter,” Trump says in the video. “When she sets her sight on something she’s tough.”

At the start of another clip, a presenter reads: “The House Republican has drawn the ire of both Democrats and members of her own party.”

Mace told her supporters later in Charleston that she will fight crime and push back against “gender ideology”, presenting herself as having an independent streak.

“It’s not about me, it’s about the people of South Carolina. I didn’t come to join the Club. They don’t want me, and I don’t want them,” she said.

Mace joins a crowded field of Republican candidates including Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette, U.S. Representative Ralph Norman, Josh Kimbrell – a state senator, and Alan Wilson, South Carolina’s longtime attorney general.

Mace drew attention with a speech on the House floor in February, when she accused her former fiancé and three other men of drugging and raping her and other women, and filming and photographing women and underage girls without their consent.

Her former fiancé has denied the allegations.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu;Editing by Helen Popper)