Part of: The 2026 South Carolina Senate Special Election
Prediction Markets Put Nancy Mace Near the Floor in the Graham-Seat Scramble
Across Kalshi, Polymarket, Manifold, and PredictIt snapshots checked July 13, Nancy Mace was priced as a long-shot in the South Carolina Senate special-election scramble, ranging from tiny fractions of a percent on Polymarket to 3 cents on Kalshi and roughly 1.4 percent on Manifold. PredictIt showed 10 cents, but its stale order book made that a weak signal rather than a clean consensus.
"The headline chatter is one thing. The market board is colder."
After Lindsey Graham's death on July 11, 2026, Nancy Mace quickly became part of the public speculation around South Carolina's sudden Senate vacancy. The prediction-market board was far less enthusiastic.
Across five visible market snapshots checked July 13, Mace was priced near the floor: 3 cents on Kalshi, 0.05 percent in one Polymarket nominee market, 0.15 percent in a second Polymarket replacement market, and about 1.4 percent on Manifold. PredictIt showed 10 cents, but the order book was stale and thin enough that it should be treated as a weak signal, not a clean consensus.
Prediction markets are not polls. They are trader-priced snapshots, and thin or new markets can move sharply. But the snapshot is still useful: on the same afternoon Mace was drawing attention as a possible Graham-seat candidate, the most visible special-primary market was not treating her as a leading contender.
The cross-platform snapshot
Maceopedia chart from public market pages and session captures checked July 13, 2026. PredictIt is marked separately because the visible book was stale and thin.
The point is not that every site was measuring exactly the same thing. They were not. Kalshi, Polymarket, Manifold, and PredictIt use different contract wording, liquidity, and settlement terms. The useful read is the direction: none of the checked markets had traders treating Mace as a top-tier favorite.
Kalshi: 3 cents
Kalshi's South Carolina special Republican primary Mace contract showed Mace at 3 cents, down from 4 cents, with the ask touching 5 cents during the session. That is the cleanest market-board number in the set: Mace was visible, tradable, and still priced as a long-shot.
Polymarket: 0.05 percent
Polymarket's "Will Nancy Mace be the new Republican nominee for Senate in SC?" market showed Mace at 0.05 percent. That is not just low single digits. It is a market price near zero.
Polymarket: 0.15 percent
A separate Polymarket event, "Will Nancy Mace replace Graham as SC Senator?", put her at 0.15 percent. Different wording, same basic signal: traders were not buying the Mace-to-Senate buzz at anything close to frontrunner odds.
Manifold: about 1.4 percent
Manifold's GOP nominee market for the 2026 South Carolina Senate race had Mace around 1.4 percent. That was higher than the two Polymarket Mace-specific contracts, but still deep long-shot territory.
PredictIt: 10 cents, but stale
PredictIt's SC Senate GOP special primary market showed Mace at 10 cents, but the visible order book also showed a stale or unfilled structure, including the 50-cent placeholder rather than a real consensus. That makes PredictIt the least reliable number in the set. It is included here for completeness, not because it overrides the broader cross-market signal.
Earlier public screenshots
Polymarket's live chart showed the top outcomes. The outcome list below the chart showed Nancy Mace below 1 percent in an earlier capture.
An earlier Kalshi public nominee page capture still showed the stale pre-vacancy Graham market. The Kalshi Mace-specific special-primary contract above is the more relevant number for this dispatch.
The read
The useful read is narrow but clear:
- Kalshi had Mace at 3 cents in the special-primary contract.
- Polymarket had Mace at 0.05 percent in a nominee-specific market and 0.15 percent in a replace-Graham market.
- Manifold had Mace around 1.4 percent.
- PredictIt showed 10 cents, but with a stale/unfilled order-book caveat.
- A prediction market is not an election forecast or poll, but it is a live measure of what traders are willing to price.
That makes the contrast sharp. Mace may be getting the headlines. The checked prediction markets were not giving her the probability.
Sources:
- Kalshi: South Carolina special Republican primary, Mace contract, checked July 13, 2026.
- Polymarket: South Carolina Republican Senate Special Primary Winner, checked July 13, 2026.
- Polymarket: Who will replace Graham as South Carolina senator?, checked July 13, 2026.
- Manifold: Who will be the Republican nominee for the 2026 South Carolina Senate race?, checked July 13, 2026.
- PredictIt: Who will win the SC Senate GOP special primary to replace Lindsey Graham?, checked July 13, 2026.
- Associated Press: Trump says South Carolina's governor should appoint Graham's sister to finish his Senate term, July 13, 2026.
Read next
August 23, 2026 · DispatchNancy Mace's Top 5 Political Failures: dead last for governor, the Speaker she toppled for nothing, and one law in nine years, a post office
A catalog of the record. Across nine years in office Nancy Mace built a national brand and almost no results to match it. She finished dead last, fifth of five, in the 2026 Republican primary for governor. She helped throw out a sitting Speaker of the House and got a more MAGA Speaker, three weeks of paralysis, and a revenge primary for her trouble. She lost to Lindsey Graham the one time she ran against him, in 2014, then talked herself out of his seat in 2026 after polling at 10 percent. Of the 192 bills she has sponsored, the only ones enacted rename post offices. And the Trump endorsement she remade her whole career to win went, twice, to her opponents. Every figure and quote below is public and dated.
July 19, 2026 · Dispatch"Which version of Nancy Mace will we get?": a nonbinary creator turns Mace's Senate flirtation into a software-update bit
On July 19, 2026, the YouTube and TikTok creator who posts as @defenestrans published an 85-second Short arguing that Nancy Mace's politics track her audience rather than her convictions, staged as a running joke about software updates. 'Nancy Mace has successfully upgraded to MAGA 5.0,' the host says, before running through 'Factory settings Nancy, District 1 Nancy, Governor's race Nancy, Senate DLC Nancy' and closing: 'I think she just has auto update on, and somehow every new version has more bugs than the last.' Two factual claims in the clip check out: Mace finished fifth in the June 9 Republican gubernatorial primary with 12.1 percent, and she has said on the record she will look at Lindsey Graham's Senate seat. The characterizations are the creator's own; Mace has not responded to the video.
July 17, 2026 · DispatchTrump endorses Lindsey Graham's sister for a full Senate term, and puts Nancy Mace's decision in a harder box
President Trump endorsed Sen. Darline Graham Nordone for a full six-year term on July 17, 2026, the same day Axios reported that Rep. Nancy Mace is still considering a Senate bid despite the endorsement. The move closes the appointment lane Mace had been eyeing and forces a choice: run against Trump's chosen candidate in a primary where she trails at 10 percent, or stand down. This dispatch catalogs the full timeline, from Mace's 'I would be an idiot not to at least look at it' media tour on July 12, to her team's viability polling, to the Emerson poll showing her tied for third at 10 percent, to Trump's endorsement of Graham's sister.
July 16, 2026 · DispatchFirst poll after Graham's death puts Nancy Mace at 10 percent, tied for third, as pollster says 'no candidate begins as a clear favorite'
The first poll taken after Sen. Lindsey Graham's death, an Emerson College Polling survey for Nexstar Media fielded July 14 to 15, found no clear front-runner in the Republican scramble for his South Carolina Senate seat. Rep. Nancy Mace drew 10 percent, tied for third with Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and behind Rep. Ralph Norman (16 percent) and businessman Mark Lynch (13 percent). No candidate reached 20 percent, and 'undecided' led the entire field at 18 percent.
August 26, 2026 · DispatchNorman snubs Mace: no mention, no thank-you at all in his concession speech. She broke with Trump to endorse him.
Rep. Ralph Norman lost the South Carolina Republican U.S. Senate runoff to Sen. Darline Graham Nordone on August 25, 2026, and conceded in Rock Hill. In the roughly six-minute speech he thanked a dozen supporters and endorsers by name: Mark Sanford, Dan Bishop, Pat Harrigan, Rick Scott, Mike Lee, Nikki Haley, Adam Morgan, and more. One name never came up: Nancy Mace. Five weeks earlier, Mace broke publicly with President Trump to endorse Norman, calling him a warrior who 'doesn't bend, doesn't break, and doesn't back down,' and Norman had thanked her on camera and in writing as 'a fearless conservative fighter.' When it counted, on the night the race ended, he did not mention her once. We transcribed the full concession to confirm it: zero mentions of Mace.
August 22, 2026 · DispatchNancy Mace says she is "now regretting" not running for the Senate. She finished fifth of five for governor, then ruled herself out of this very seat.
In an August 21, 2026 episode of her Facebook show 'Get Maced,' Rep. Nancy Mace watches a rival in the South Carolina U.S. Senate runoff and says, 'I'm now regretting I'm not running for the US Senate.' The line lands against her own recent record. Ten weeks earlier she finished fifth of five in the June 9 Republican gubernatorial primary with 12.1 percent. When Lindsey Graham's Senate seat then opened, she polled at 10 percent, tied for third, and on July 20 she publicly ruled herself out. This dispatch sets her on-camera regret next to the results and polling she is regretting.