Katie Arrington launches 2nd GOP run for US House seat, calls SC incumbent ‘sellout’ in ad
Republican Katie Arrington dove into the Republican race for Congress in Charleston on Tuesday, calling her former state House colleague and current incumbent U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace “a sellout” who is more interested in fame than doing the job she was elected to do.
The Summerville Republican launched her congressional campaign for the South Carolina Lowcountry U.S. House seat in a biting, 2-minute ad released online Tuesday morning.
“Let’s be honest, Nancy Mace is a sellout,” Arrington said in the ad, which appears to have been shot in the Summerville area. “She sold out the Lowcountry. She sold out President Trump. She is more interested in becoming a mainstream media celebrity than fighting for the people she’s supposed to represent.”
Mace said in response that serving in Congress has been the honor of her life.
“And I at least partially have her 2018 loss in our District to thank for that,” Mace added. “I look forward to earning the vote of everyone in the Lowcountry once again, and continuing to serve the 1st District in my next term.”
Asked if she has watched Arrington’s campaign video, Mace said “no” and that she had no plans on watching it, either.
“It’s nasty, it’s unnecessary, and, you know, it does not represent the Lowcountry,“ Mace told The State newspaper.
Mace later took to Twitter, where she responded to news of Arrington’s challenge with a three-word tweet: “Bring. It. On.”
Arrington’s entrance in the crowded GOP primary came one day after Mace, a Daniel Island Republican, was endorsed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who also served as then-President Donald Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Arrington made political waves in 2018 when she ousted incumbent U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, a former governor who had never lost a political race in his career, in the one-on-one Republican primary.
After beating Sanford and temporarily hitting pause on campaigning after she was in a serious car crash, Arrington ultimately lost to Democrat Joe Cunningham in the November election, who flipped the seat for Democrats for the first time since the 1980s.
When Arrington conceded, she blamed Sanford and his supporters for not lining up behind her.
After serving one term in Congress, Cunningham was unseated by Mace in 2020. Cunningham is now seeking the Democratic nomination for governor.
In that 2018 contest, Arrington became a national Republican star overnight who was one of the first candidates to show that loyalty to Trump would be a driving force in a Republican’s political future. She secured Trump’s endorsement in the Republican primary on that June election day.
In Arrington’s ad, it appears she will be ready to again make allegiance to Trump a talking point on the campaign trail.
“I’ll be a proud pro-Trump conservative: protecting the unborn, building the wall, getting our economy moving again and standing up to Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and the radical left,” Arrington said in her campaign ad.
She also took a shot at Mace for her States Reform Act, which would end the federal government’s 85-year prohibition on marijuana and proposes regulating the substance more like alcohol.
“Why is she prioritizing that over the skyrocketing inflation, high gas prices and economic security for the Lowcountry? Is Nancy Mace high?” Arrington asked, straight-to-camera.
Arrington’s entrance into the race also comes less than three months after Trump called for “good and SMART America First Republican Patriots” to run primary campaigns against Mace and U.S. Rep. Tom Rice, R-Myrtle Beach.
If they did, Trump promised, “You will have my backing!”
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who traveled to Mar-a-Lago last week to meet with the former president, did not answer directly when asked Tuesday whether he planned to endorse any candidate in either the 1st Congressional District race or the 7th Congressional District.
“I’m for Republicans,” McMaster said, declining to elaborate.
If elected, Arrington said she will only serve for four terms, or eight years. Arrington also pledged to reject the congressional health care and retirement benefits afforded to members of Congress and promised to donate a percentage of her congressional salary to charities in the Lowcountry.
“I don’t want to go to Washington for me. I want to go to serve you,” Arrington said in the ad.
After losing her 2018 congressional race, Arrington landed a federal job in Washington, where she most recently worked for the Department of Defense as a chief information security officer within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.
In a lawsuit, Arrington was accused of disclosing classified information without permission and lost her security clearance. In May 2021, she was then placed on paid administrative leave. Arrington resigned from her post on Monday.
A statement from her attorney Mark Zaid said the lawsuit Arrington filed against the Pentagon “led to additional information being released in December 2021, and eventually the government’s payment of attorney’s fees.”
However, in his statement, Zaid also said the Department of Defense eliminated Arrington’s position last week.
In an interview with Brietbart News, Arrington said she has hired Axiom Strategies to help her run this race. The political consulting firm is a behemoth in Republican political campaigns that has worked for Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, among others.
“Taking on an incumbent doesn’t bother me,” Arrington said in that interview. “Nancy Mace doesn’t bother me. I know what I bring to the district. I see what she hasn’t.”
With Arrington now in the race, Mace faces a trio of challengers that also include Lynz Piper-Loomis and Ingrid Centurion, whose campaigns have, so far, been unable to post major fundraising totals.
According to her year-end federal fundraising report, Mace raised more than $600,000 in her last fundraising quarter and enters the 2022 election year with $1.5 million cash on hand — more than anyone else in the raise, Republican or Democrat.
All of the Republicans running in this South Carolina GOP congressional primary are women.
On the Democratic side, three candidates — Annie Andrews, Rebecca Niess Cingolani and Timothy Lewis — are also running for their shot at representing the district in Washington.
Andrews, who is leading in fundraising efforts among Democrats in the race and has about $387,000 in her campaign account, issued a statement saying that she and Arrington agree that Mace has “sold out the Lowcountry.”
“She’s more interested in climbing the political ladder and being famous than she is in delivering results for the Lowcountry. That’s why both parties agree that it’s time to defeat Nancy Mace,” Andrews said in an emailed statement. “While Katie Arrington is running to serve Donald Trump and Nancy Mace is running to continue serving herself, I am running to serve the thousands of Lowcountry families who simply want honest and effective representation.”
In an interview with Brietbart News, Arrington said she has hired , Axiom Strategies, to come in and help run this campaign and take on this mighty task.
In the background, the actual map of the district is also a factor in the race.
Gov. Henry McMaster last month signed into law the Legislature’s redrawn congressional map which expands Republicans’ advantage in the state, and could play a role in the coastal 1st Congressional District.
The map splits 10 counties, maintains the 6th Congressional District as a majority-minority district, and expands Republican influence in the 1st District. It’s expected to be challenged in court.
Maayan Schechter contributed to this story with reporting from Columbia, S.C.
This story was originally published February 8, 2022 at 7:51 AM.
