Vice President Pence headed to SC next week to help boost GOP hopeful Nancy Mace’s bid
Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to visit South Carolina on Tuesday, sources familiar with his plans told The State.
His visit will include a campaign event to help boost the candidacy of Nancy Mace, a Lowcountry Republican seeking to oust Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham in the 1st Congressional District, some of the sources said.
The event will be among the White House’s first since Mace won her June Republican primary to take on Cunningham.
Mace’s campaign manager Mara Mellstrom told The State Thursday she couldn’t confirm at this time.
The 1st District race is set to be South Carolina’s most hotly-watched race in 2020 and is expected to be a toss up.
The coastal Lowcountry seat, which includes Charleston, Hilton Head Island and Summerville, went for President Donald Trump in 2016. But in 2018, Cunningham shocked the political scene when he became the first Democrat in 40 years to win the congressional seat, beating Republican state Rep. Katie Arrington, who had just defeated former longtime Rep. Mark Sanford in that year’s primary.
The first female graduate of The Citadel military college in Charleston who worked on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Mace so far trails Cunningham in fundraising.
Cunningham raised more money than Mace in the second quarter of this year, bringing in $862,000 — for a total $4.4 million haul and $3 million cash on hand — to Mace’s $714,000 raised between April 1 and June 30, bringing her total for the cycle to $1.9 million.
Mace had $743,000 cash on hand at the end of the quarter.
But four months out from the November general election — and with Trump at the top of the ticket — political observers note there is still plenty of time for Mace to raise money to compete.
John Monk and Joseph Bustos contributed to this report.
This story will be updated
This story was originally published July 17, 2020 at 11:51 AM.
