Conservative group pumps $410K into first primary TV ad buy for candidate Nancy Mace
Conservative group Club for Growth will launch its first television, cable and digital ad buy this week for state Rep. Nancy Mace, tying the Berkeley County Republican directly to President Donald Trump as his prime defender in South Carolina’s 1st District Congressional GOP primary race.
The $410,000, 30-second spot titled “Tenacity” will air in Charleston and Savannah markets on Wednesday to election day.
Mace is running in a four-way Republican primary against Chris Cox, Brad Mole and Kathy Landing. The primary winner on June 9 — or the subsequent June 23 runoff — will face Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham in November.
The new ad highlights Mace as the first female graduate of South Carolina’s military college The Citadel, but more prominently — four times to be exact — touts her defense of Trump and his administration.
The ad also says Mace “fought” against an internet sales tax in South Carolina. State House records show Mace supported legislation last year to enforce out-of-state retailers with no properties in South Carolina and third-party sellers to send back sales tax it collects from S.C. shoppers.
However, in 2013, before she was elected to the State House, Mace penned a blog post saying a similar federal bill would “place an enormous burden on our nation’s small businesses, requiring them to keep track of and collect sales tax on each online purchase, a task that becomes that much more challenging when considering the nearly 10,000 unique taxing jurisdictions across the country.”
The ad features photos of Mace with a male voice-over, saying:
“President Trump needs people he can count on in Congress, people like Nancy Mace,” the narrator says. “The first woman to graduate from The Citadel. Mace won’t back down. When it came to stopping Hillary Clinton, Mace went out and organized seven states for the Trump campaign. Mace fought the internet sales tax here in South Carolina. She’ll defend Trump’s tax cuts in Washington. Conservative Republican Nancy Mace, for Trump, for Congress.”
Club for Growth’s PAC endorsed Mace last year.
The 1st District race has shaped up to be one of the state’s most-watched races in 2020, after Democrat Cunningham in the 2018 midterms edged out former Republican state Rep. Katie Arrington, who beat former Rep. Mark Sanford in the primary.
And it’s become a top target for the national GOP after Cunningham raised hopes of Democrats when he won the seat after the GOP had controlled since 1981.
As of Tuesday, nearly $4.4 million in TV, digital, cable and radio ads had been funneled into the state just for the 1st District Congressional race, according to Advertising Analytics.
Of that amount, the ad firm logged more than $3.2 million on broadcast ads.
This story was originally published May 20, 2020 at 9:39 AM.
