To the surprise of almost no one, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace told the Associated Press Wednesday she was running thinking about running for governor of the Palmetto State in 2026.
And she will, she made clear, be running as a bearer of the Trump torch.
“Trump is going to need people in governor seats in ’26,” Mace said. “It’s not going to be an easy election cycle for us. In ’26, we need people who can win, win big, and implement his agenda, and I will do that. I’ve been doing it.”
Right.
Again, none of this is surprising. Mace has been desperately moving as close as possible to Trump in recent years — most notably with her appalling attacks on transgender Rep. Sarah McBride —in expectation that she would need those MAGA votes to get elected statewide in South Carolina.
She had to take on the zeal of the converted after her apostasy against Trump following the January 6, 2021 attack at the U.S. Capitol. The following day, Mace went on CNN and said this: “Everything that he’s worked for … all of that, his entire legacy, was wiped out yesterday. We’ve got to start over.”
Trump, of course, endorsed Mace’s primary opponent in 2022. Mace won — but she also got the message: The only path for an ambitious Republican is total and complete (and performative) loyalty to Trump.
Which is the path she has — transparently — walked ever since.
Why Mace’s announcement is interesting to me is that it reveals that Donald Trump — and the national populism he represents — will not disappear or even dissipate when he leaves office in 2029.
Why? Because he has spawned a panoply of copycats — politicians who see his blueprint for how to win and are following it to the letter. And at least some of these people are going to win prominent offices in 2026. And they are going to be the next generation of potential national leaders.
Mace is one example. Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who is nearly certain to run for governor of the Sunshine State next year, is another. Rep. Andy Biggs, a prominent member of the Trump-y House Freedom Caucus is flirting with a run for governor of Arizona.
There will be more. Many more. Politics is an imitation game. And Trump’s bullying populism and brash provocation has been revealed to appeal to a broad swath of Republicans and even independents.
My point: Trumpism doesn’t end when Donald Trump leaves office in early 2029. He has spawned a thousand imitators who will carry his flag forward. For Republicans, it’s Trumpism all the way down.
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