Stupid, selfish and long past his usefulness to anyone, Jim Clyburn intervened in the last South Carolina gerrymander— and not in a good way. His own disgustingly gerrymandered district is far bluer than the state of South Carolina is red— D+14 vs R+8. His district's partisan lean is an outrageous D+25, the epitome of “packing,” diluting the state’s African American vote by concentrating as many black precincts scattered around the state into one district as possible, making other districts much safer for Republicans.
Particularly, thanks to Clyburn, Nancy Mace’s Charleston-centric district is no longer seriously contestable. Clyburn moved stealthily to protect that fat safety margin in his district at a cost to Black voters and to his own party. It started with a clandestine meeting between a top Clyburn aide and the Republican chief of staff for South Carolina’s Senate Judiciary Committee just as the post-census redistricting project was getting underway. Clyburn had his own map— drawn with only his personal self-interest in mind— adding more Black precinct’s to his super-safe district. In return for making Clyburn’s ridiculous district even safer, there was a cost to South Carolina Democrats— and to democracy: “Democrats,” wrote Marilyn Thompson, “now have virtually no shot of winning any congressional seat in South Carolina other than Clyburn’s.”
SC-01 went from swing district status, which elected a Democrat as recently as 2018, to a solidly Republican district where Nancy Mace doesn’t have to worry about moderating her positions to appeal to independents and conservative Democrats. In 2020, she beat incumbent Joe Cunningham, a conservative Democrat, in one of the tightest races in the country: 216,042 (50.6%) to 210,627 (49.3%). Last cycle she was reelected far more comfortably: 153,757 (56.4%) to 115,796 (42.5%). All she has to worry about now is a primary.
And, as it turns out, she does have to worry about a primary. She stabbed Kevin McCarthy in the back when extremists ousted him as speaker. He wants revenge— and he has the money to go after her. Yesterday Jacqueline Alemany reported that Mace’s former chief of staff, Dan Hanlon, is considering “a primary challenge against his ex-boss after an exodus of staffers in recent months who cited a toxic workplace culture.”
But the report got more interesting than just one about a disgruntled ex-employee and a bad boss, something not uncommon in Congress. Alemany wrote that McCarthy, “who vowed to give Hanlon a job during a scorched earth news conference following Mace’s vote to remove McCarthy as speaker of the House, also privately encouraged Hanlon to explore a primary challenge, according to people familiar with the discussions. ‘Hanlon has been pleased with how well the idea has been received and how many people are looking for a Mace alternative, both money people in D.C. and movers and shakers in S.C.,’ a Republican familiar with Hanlon’s decision-making process told Politico, who first reported the news. A former Mace staffer told the Washington Post that Hanlon was urged by people on Capitol Hill and in South Carolina to pursue a bid against Mace as she became increasingly difficult to work with and unflattering reports about her conduct, office culture and policymaking process leaked to the press.”
Among the negative reports about Mace’s conduct was an examination of a 98-page handbook authored by Mace that included guidance to staff that she only be served room temperature water and that she be pulled from constituent meetings that lasted longer than 3 minutes, along with booking quotas for appearances on cable news outlets. Her colleagues have privately called her a narcissist, complained about the repeated discrepancies between her public statements and private reversals, and critiqued her for a perceived lack of a moral compass.
A trail of disillusioned ex-Mace staffers has informally lined up behind Hanlon, and Mace has struggled to fill out her shrinking office, according to people familiar with her new hires.
Hanlon, who has worked in Republican politics and for South Carolinian members for over a decade, “doesn’t seek the spotlight, unlike Mace who uses crass comments about her sex life to get in the news cycle,” said another former Mace staffer, a reference to Mace’s comment at a prayer breakfast about turning down her then-fiancé’s advances ahead of the event.
A report from the New Republic was more assertive about McCarthy’s role. “Out of office and almost out of sight, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has started to wage war against the clan of far-right Republicans who booted him from his high-flying position, all from behind the curtain. First on the list: Nancy Mace… It’s now increasingly clear, however, that a huge part of that initial push was thanks to McCarthy, who allegedly encouraged Hanlon to run against Mace in the aftermath of her vote to oust him from the speakership. McCarthy and his allies have been digging for ways to unseat the Trumpian acolyte since she locked hands with seven other Republicans, including Matt Gaetz and Ken Buck, in voting to oust the former speaker… And Hanlon’s new chapter— which started with a bang when Mace’s incoming chief of staff called the Capitol Police to the office when Hanlon returned to give back his keys— may see some old players emerge. One of the Republicans who spoke with The Post predicted that the race may spur a walk-off, with other former Mace staffers joining the Hanlon campaign against her.”
