Republicans dump on 'crybully' MAGA lawmaker after her loss: 'She's not all there'

Nancy Mace's political career came to a crashing end Tuesday as the South Carolina congresswoman finished a distant fifth in the state's Republican gubernatorial primary — and the knives came out almost immediately.

Former allies, ex-staffers and fellow Republicans were immediately lining up to deliver their verdicts on a congressional tenure defined by combustible ambition and self-inflicted wounds in a turbulent political career that appears to have ended in her decisive loss, reported the Washington Post.

“The only thing I hope is she gets the help she needs,” said former Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy. "I helped her win. But I just watched her change along the way. Some people warned when she was an early candidate, ‘Watch out, she’s not all there.’ I didn’t.”

Mace failed to carry even her own home county in the GOP primary, and no prominent Republican had endorsed her campaign. The endorsement from President Donald Trump that she spent months courting went to a rival instead, and those who worked alongside her wasted little time explaining why.

"I don't think Nancy Mace has ever seen a bridge in her life that she hasn't burned down," said Will Hampson, one of her former communications directors. Another former adviser put it more bluntly: "She was her own best weapon — and own worst enemy."

Mace had branded herself a moderate, voted to codify same-sex marriage and urged her party to find common ground with Democrats on abortion. But she then pivoted hard to MAGA, repeatedly mocking transgender people in terms that drew widespread condemnation, and in the final stretch of the governor's race suggested a Republican opponent had come from "a slum in India."

Her public behavior grew increasingly erratic. A profanity-laced tirade at Charleston airport staff drew a rebuke from both of South Carolina's Republican senators. She spoke on the House floor for nearly an hour accusing multiple men of sex crimes. She confronted her own nephew at a public event and jabbed her finger in his face over a political endorsement. Dozens of local Republican officials in her own district signed a letter condemning her conduct.

CJ Westfall, who as chairman of the Dorchester County Republican Party had worked on Mace’s 2022 general election campaign, once praised her as an inspiration, but he got tired of the drama surrounding her and now describes her as a “crybully” who likes to generate controversy and then “play the victim” when someone pushed back.

Former GOP operative Justin Evans, who once supported Mace, captured the consensus view: "She had all the ingredients a successful candidate should have. It's just her moral compass was completely missing."