Nancy Mace outmaneuvers Kevin McCarthy's revenge operation

Kevin McCarthy’s revenge tour is off to a bumpy start.

South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace was one of eight Republicans who voted to strip the former speaker of the gavel, and the former speaker’s allies spent big to take her down.

They couldn't.

Mace decisively defeated Catherine Templeton, a former gubernatorial candidate, whose allies plunged more than $5 million against the incumbent, according to ad tracker AdImpact.

Her victory could be a good sign for McCarthy's other detractors who have primary challenges in the coming weeks and months, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), who correctly predicted that Mace was "about to roll her opposition."

Crucially, Mace won the backing of Donald Trump. The former president wasn't always a Mace fan. He backed her ultimately unsuccessful primary challenger in 2022, after Mace blamed him for the Capitol riot.

But Mace also evolved since that election. The congresswoman, who repeatedly broke with her party on abortion, has swung away from and back to supporting Trump. She was known for throwing herself into the spotlight. At one point during the rancorous speaker fight, she signaled how her vote might ostracize her from her party by wearing a scarlet “A” on her shirt, a reference to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter."

But in recent months, she has stayed relatively quiet. South Carolina Republican Rep. Ralph Norman described Mace as being more mellow in Congress this year: “She's kind of low-profile now.”

A Mace victory adds to Trump’s wins this cycle and the former president congratulated Mace on social media soon after. He endorsed candidates who have mostly had a strong track record in this year’s congressional primaries, with the exception of Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner, who last week lost the New Jersey Senate primary.

“I think [Mace] intimidates a lot of guys because she's smart, and she's aggressive and some dudes just can't handle that,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said. But ultimately, Burchett — who also voted against McCarthy — said Mace’s primary challenger was rooted in the speakership vote: “Absolutely that's the only reason.”

Another of the McCarthy targets, Rep. Bob Good (Va.), faces a primary race next week. But unlike Mace, the House Freedom Caucus chair isn’t benefiting from Trump’s support. The former president is instead backing Good’s opponent, state Sen. John McGuire, as are a handful of members of Congress. Good, who initially supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary, has been outraised and outspent on the airwaves by McGuire.

Rep. Eli Crane (Ariz.) also voted to oust McCarthy and faces a primary later this summer. Two of McCarthy's other detractors — Rep. Matt Rosendale (Mont.) and former Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.) — aren’t running for reelection, while two others — Burchett and Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) — don’t have a primary opponent.

But Rep. John Duarte, a McCarthy ally and fellow California Republican, said these members “need repercussions where it's relevant.” Duarte helped support Templeton in this primary — and didn’t rule out helping other challengers in the future.

“We came here to have a majority and to stop socialism in America in this kind of barrel of monkeys nonsense that disrupted the conference and disrupted our effectiveness is frustrating,” Duarte said on Tuesday.

As drawn today, South Carolina’s 1st District would have voted for Trump over now-President Joe Biden by 9 percentage points in 2020 — but it is also the only congressional district to award former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley delegates from her home state in the presidential primary.