From Waffle House waitress to US Representative: the rise and fall of transphobe Nancy Mace

“Clearly, I aimed too high. The fast track to winning in politics these days is a Nazi tattoo, a habit of hitting women, or a staffer half your age. Rookie mistake.”

That was soon-to-be-unemployed Nancy Mace’s Facebook post after losing big in the South Carolina Governor’s race Republican primary. She also changed her Facebook tag line to: “Christian. Citadel Grad. Fmr Waffle House Waitress. Got my ass kicked in the Governor’s race.”

As reported by PBS News on June 10, there is “an uncertain future for one of the nation’s unabashed politicians.”

Mace, who once claimed to be a supporter of trans rights and who then became one of the most outspoken anti-LGBTQ+ members of Congress, placed fifth, coming in behind the state’s Lt. Governor Pamela Evette (Trump endorsed) and the state’s Attorney General Alan Wilson.

At one point, Mace held a five-point lead over Evette in the polls and an 18-point lead over Wilson.

Mace clearly established herself as an opponent of all things LGBTQ+ when Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) was elected in 2024 as the first out trans person in the U.S. House of Representatives.

That year, NBC reported Mace as saying “that her effort to ban transgender women from using female bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol is a direct response to the election of Sarah McBride, who is set to be the first openly transgender person in Congress.”

After introducing a resolution to prohibit any lawmakers from using a bathroom that did not correspond to their biological sex, Mace said, “I’m absolutely 100 percent gonna stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women’s restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms. I will be there fighting you every step of the way.”

Mace was a MAGA darling, the face of anti-LGBTQ+ efforts. Then something happened. Actually, several things happened.

She was one of seven House Republicans who signed a letter stating that Congress did not have the authority to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Even after criticizing Trump regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, she courted him for support.

Her last big mistake was joining in a bipartisan effort to force the Justice Department to release the Epstein Files, contrary to Trump’s wishes. Trump perceived it as disloyalty, the biggest sin to commit in his circle.

As reported in the Advocate early in June, “Apparently, that loyalty mattered more to Trump than Mace’s years long effort to reinvent herself as one of Congress’s most visible anti-trans politicians.”

Mace has become more erratic in the past few years since her election in 2020.

Earlier this year, Mace was investigated by the House Committee on Ethics. According to the Committee’s report, “There is substantial reason to believe that Rep. Mace engaged in improper reimbursement practices.” She was alleged to have sought reimbursement that exceeded her actual expenses.

During her unsuccessful attempt in the SC Republican gubernatorial primary, she said, referring to one of her opponents, Rom Reddy, “I didn’t come out of a slum in India. I am born and made here in America.”

Republicans who have worked with Mace in the past are now criticizing her publicly.

Former Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Speaker of the House had a bitter feud with Mace. In 2023, she joined seven other Republican representatives in voting to remove him as Speaker. McCarthy told the Washington Post he had watched Mace’s “political and personal” life unravel. “The only thing I hope is she gets the help she needs.” He recalled being warned to “watch out, she’s not all there.”

Trump has not been the only focus of Mace’s rhetoric. She demanded that Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) be expelled from the House in April of this year, accusing him of lying about his military service. She criticized the senior senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, saying that he was “Washington’s war machine” because he urged the President to invade Kharg Island (off the southwestern coast of Iran) with Marine forces.

Quoted in The Hill, she said, “Washington’s war machine is hard at work. They are trying to drag us into Iran to make it another Iraq. And yes, when we say Washington’s war machine, we mean Lindsey Graham.”

Mace’s staff members have turned on her. There have been numerous accusations of volatility and excessive drinking when it comes to their former boss.

Will Hampson, who served as the senior communications aide and spokesperson for Mace until his departure in 2023, was reported in an LGBTQ Nation article as saying of his former boss, “I don’t think Nancy Mace has ever seen a bridge in her life that she hasn’t burned down.”

Justin Evans, a senior vice president at Republican political consulting firm Big Dog Strategies aptly described Mace and her political whirlwind career in the same LGBTQ Nation piece when he said that she possessed “all the ingredients that a successful candidate should have. It’s just her moral compass was completely missing.”