SC Republican Nancy Mace declares win in US House race. Joe Cunningham won’t concede
Standing outside the Waffle House where she worked 25 years ago as a high school dropout, Republican Nancy Mace declared victory in South Carolina’s highly competitive 1st Congressional District race even as Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham refused to concede.
“My job starts now to bring people together all across the district, whether they were with us in the election or not. It’s my job to represent every single resident of the Lowcountry, and my loyalty lies here in the Lowcountry,” Mace said Wednesday morning. “Regardless of your political affiliation, I’m here to serve you.”
A group of more than 30 supporters and staff stood behind her, beaming at their presumed future congresswoman as they held campaign signs bearing her name.
The Associated Press had called the race in Mace’s favor at 2:04 a.m. Wednesday, but eight hours later, Mace said she had not received a call from Cunningham or his campaign. On Wednesday afternoon, thousands of ballots still remained uncounted in the district, though Mace led the confirmed tally by more than 10,000 votes.
Instead of a concession from Cunningham, Mace saw a media statement from Cunningham’s campaign that indicated the freshman Democrat was not giving up in the race.
“There are tens of thousands of ballots outstanding across the district. Both candidates have agreed that every ballot must be counted and every voice heard before an election result is called,” Cunningham’s campaign manager Allie Watters said in an emailed statement.
Multiple attempts to reach the Cunningham campaign for additional comment about how they see a path to victory were not immediately returned.
Mace said she was disappointed to learn Cunningham had not conceded in the race.
“The voters have spoken,” Mace said. “The election results, when they are all said and done and counted, which will likely be later today, I believe we will have a larger victory than we do right now.”
She later turned to her volunteers and staff.
“I’m here today to thank everybody. We did it,” Mace said, prompting her supporters to erupt in applause and cheers.
Mace also said she was confident she would be able to maintain and potentially expand her narrow lead in the 1st District, which includes all or sections of Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester, Beaufort and Colleton counties.
According to unofficial returns as of Wednesday afternoon, Mace had secured more than 51% of the vote totals compared to Cunningham’s 49%.
Mace, a 42-year-old state lawmaker from Daniel Island, led Cunningham in Beaufort, Colleton and Dorchester. Cunningham, meanwhile, held a 17,000 vote lead over Mace in Charleston
District-wide, Mace held a 10,360 vote lead over Cunningham, a 38-year-old James Island Democrat, just after 12:15 p.m. Wednesday.
However, two counties in the 1st Congressional District were still tabulating results at lunchtime Wednesday: Beaufort and Dorchester.
Results from the South Carolina Elections Commission’s website indicated that only a fraction of the mail-in ballots in Beaufort County have been counted.
The outstanding mail-in ballots — which currently trend Democratic — could either cement Mace’s win or tilt the election in Cunningham’s favor. In the Republican stronghold, Mace was leading Cunningham in Beaufort County overall by just over 10,000 votes.
But Cunningham leads among mail-in Beaufort County voters with 6,485 votes, ahead of Mace’s 4,269, as poll workers continue to input the ballots.
Beaufort County elections director Marie Smalls said the total number of mail-in ballots cast in the county was just over 18,000.
Smalls also said the counting process could take a few more hours to complete and estimated between 6,000 and 7,000 ballots still need to be counted.
“It’s a tedious process,” Smalls said. “Just opening up the envelope, you got to do it one at a time.”
Meanwhile, in Dorchester County, elections officials were beginning to hand-count more than 14,000 absentee ballots that could not be counted on election night because of a printing error on the ballots.
A more complete and official tally of votes in South Carolina’s won’t be available until Friday afternoon, when election results are certified.
Mace’s campaign again declared victory in an email sent shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday.
In a district where President Donald Trump won by 13 percentage points in 2016, Mace sought to convince voters that Cunningham was too liberal to represent the Lowcountry in Washington. She frequently tied Cunningham to more liberal figures in the Democratic Party, like U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
One of her pitches to voters was asking them to “send a new Nancy to Congress.”
Cunningham, meanwhile, refuted the partisan caricature Mace painted of him. He tried to convince voters to look past his political label and instead look at how he delivered for the district rather than for the Democratic Party.
Federal pre-election reports show Cunningham raised some $6.5 million in the race, while Mace raised just shy of $5 million.
Millions also poured in from outside groups, as national Democrats looked to defend their newfound territory while national Republicans sought to win it back.
Cunningham, 38, had never run for office when he was narrowly elected to represent South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District in 2018, a seat previously held by Mark Sanford.
Cunningham was the first Democrat in nearly 40 years to hold the seat and was elected on the so-called “blue wave” of the 2018 midterms when Democrats picked up 41 U.S. House seats.
Almost immediately, Republicans vowed revenge and identified Cunningham’s seat as a top target in 2020.
If the Election Night results from the Associated Press hold, Mace will become the first Republican woman elected to Congress in the state of South Carolina.
Kate Hidalgo Bellows contributed to this story.
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 1:48 PM.
