Part of: Musgrave v. Mace (2:25-cv-01823-RMG) · The 2026 South Carolina Senate Special Election · January 6 & the Trump Relationship · 2026 Governor Campaign
"I'm not chasing another title, I'm chasing justice": Nancy Mace rules out the Senate race, and with it, public office
On July 20, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace announced in a 64-second video on X that she will not enter the special election for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham's Senate seat. 'I want to be straight with you. I'm not running for the US Senate, not because I'm backing down from a fight, but because the one I'm already in matters right now.' The announcement came three days after President Trump endorsed Graham's sister, interim Sen. Darline Graham Nordone, for the full term. Combined with her June 10 decision not to seek re-election to the House, Mace is now set to leave public office when her term ends in January 2027. This dispatch reproduces the video statement in full, verbatim, alongside the separate written statement she posted with it.
Rep. Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) announced on Monday, July 20, 2026 that she will not run for the seat of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. She made the announcement in a 64-second video posted to her own X account, accompanied by a separate written statement. The two texts are worded differently, and both are reproduced in full below.
With filing for the special election closing at noon on July 28, and with her June 10 announcement that she would not seek re-election to the House, Mace is now set to leave public office when her term ends in January 2027.
Reporting credit: The announcement was covered the same afternoon by Fox Carolina, Newsweek, Fox News, WBTV, the Washington Examiner, and WSLS. Outlets split on which of her two statements they carried, which is why several published accounts of the same announcement do not share a single quotation. Both are hers. Both are below.
The video
I'm not running for the Senate - because I have some unfinished business.
Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) July 20, 2026
Rep. Nancy Mace's announcement video, posted to X on July 20, 2026 at 4:22 p.m. ET. View the original post. Runtime 64 seconds.
Maceopedia short, cut from Rep. Mace's own announcement video of July 20, 2026. Her words, unaltered.
The video is a single unbroken take, shot square at 1080 by 1080, with a "CONGRESSWOMAN NANCY MACE" lower third and a composited Charleston Rainbow Row backdrop. She speaks directly to camera. Burned-in captions run throughout.
The video statement, in full
This is the complete spoken text, transcribed by Maceopedia from the original video file and checked line by line against the burned-in on-screen captions in her own video. The partial quotations published by Fox News, the Washington Examiner and WBTV match this transcription.
"I want to be straight with you. I'm not running for the US Senate, not because I'm backing down from a fight, but because the one I'm already in matters right now.
The laws meant to protect me and other women failed us, and I won't stop until that changes.
So I'm not chasing another title, I'm chasing justice. Justice for me, justice for other women, and justice for every little girl who was told to stay silent. That's where my focus is today, and that's where it's going to stay.
Serving South Carolina has been the honor of my life, and I will continue to voice our values everywhere I can.
I'm even going to shitpost from time to time because someone has to call out the dumbasses. Because if we don't, we as a country will be gone.
I love you. I want to thank you for the thousands of calls and text messages and offers to help in a race like this, and I say God bless you.
Serving you has been the honor of my life, and I will never forget it."
Two notes on the text, both about accuracy rather than substance. The profanity is hers and is spoken plainly in the audio; her own on-screen captions render it as "sh*t post," censored and split into two words, while the Gateway Pundit, the only outlet found to have printed the line at all, rendered it "sh-tpost." Maceopedia reproduces what is audible. Separately, she says a version of "the honor of my life" twice, once about South Carolina near the start and once about "serving you" at the close. That repetition is in the recording, not an artifact of transcription; the on-screen captions carry both.
The written statement
Posted alongside the video, and the version most outlets ran:
"I'm not running for the Senate - because I have some unfinished business. Since I stood on that House floor, I've been fighting for every woman and girl who was told to stay silent. I want justice - and that day is coming. Thank you for all your support, all the calls and texts. You are the BEST. Serving South Carolina is the honor of my LIFE, and I will NEVER forget it."
Fox Carolina and Newsweek both printed this text. It overlaps the video only in theme. The phrases most widely quoted from Monday, "unfinished business" and "chasing justice," come from two different statements released at the same time.
What she is referring to
The litigation half of this announcement, what "the one I'm already in" and "unfinished business" point back to, and the status of the gag order that was in place when she said it, is set out separately in "The one I'm already in".
Mace does not name a case in either statement. The references to "the one I'm already in," to "the laws meant to protect me," and to standing "on that House floor" point to allegations she first made in a February 10, 2025 speech on the floor of the House. Those allegations are contested. The men she named have denied them, no charges have been brought against them arising from that speech, and related civil litigation is ongoing. Maceopedia takes no position on the underlying claims and reproduces her statements here as statements.
The timing
- July 11, Sen. Lindsey Graham died at 71.
- July 14, Gov. Henry McMaster swore in Graham's younger sister, Darline Graham Nordone, as interim senator.
- July 12, Mace told Fox News, "I would be an idiot not to at least look at it."
- July 16, an Emerson College poll put her at 10 percent, tied for third.
- July 17, President Trump endorsed Nordone for the full term, writing "RUN, DARLINE, RUN!"
- July 18, Rep. Ralph Norman entered the race anyway.
- July 20, Nordone confirmed to Sean Hannity that she is running: "I've made a decision. I'm in." Hours later, Mace said she is not.
- July 21, filing opens. July 28, filing closes. August 11, Republican primary.
Trump world had signaled hostility to a Mace bid before she decided. An official told Axios: "If Mace ends up in a runoff, we'll drop $2 million on her head to keep her out."
The exit
Mace's last statewide test was six weeks ago. She finished fifth of five in the June 9 Republican gubernatorial primary with 57,380 votes, 12.1 percent, and did not reach the runoff. The next day she said she would not seek re-election to the House:
"Headed back to the private sector at the end of this term, as the Founders intended... When I ran in 2020 I said I'd only serve 3 terms and my time is up."
Monday's announcement closes the remaining path. Barring an appointment or a later race, her congressional term ending in January 2027 will end her time in elected office.
A note on a misattributed quote
In the hours after the announcement, several accounts on X, including one belonging to a C-SPAN producer, posted "I'm not chasing another title, I'm chasing justice" as Mace's statement. Because the written statement she posted does not contain that line, it briefly circulated as a fabrication.
It is not. The line is in the video, at the 18-second mark, in her own voice, and it was independently transcribed by three newsrooms. Maceopedia initially flagged it as unverified and has corrected that; the accounts that quoted it were quoting her accurately, from the video rather than the caption.
Sources & related coverage
- Rep. Nancy Mace, the announcement video and written statement, X, July 20, 2026, the primary source for this dispatch
- Fox Carolina, "Rep. Nancy Mace says she will not enter race for late Sen. Lindsey Graham's seat" (July 20, 2026)
- Fox News, "Nancy Mace announces she is not running for Senate seat" (July 20, 2026), which carried the video statement
- WBTV, "Rep. Nancy Mace says she will not run for US Senate seat in South Carolina" (July 20, 2026)
- Newsweek, on the special election field (July 20, 2026)
- WSLS, "Darline Graham says she will run for a full term in Lindsey Graham's Senate seat" (July 20, 2026)
- South Carolina Election Commission, U.S. Senate Special Republican Party filing and primary calendar
- Related Maceopedia: Filing opens Tuesday and Mace has seven days · Trump endorses Graham's sister · Mace's shifting answer on the Graham seat · Emerson poll puts Mace at 10 percent · "Which version of Nancy Mace will we get?"
This dispatch reproduces Rep. Mace's own public statements of July 20, 2026, verbatim and in full, from a video she posted publicly. It does not characterize the litigation she refers to. Allegations she has made are contested and denied by those she named, and no finding has been made on them.
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 21, 2026 · DispatchOne day after quitting the race, Nancy Mace endorses Ralph Norman and snubs Trump's pick for Graham's Senate seat
One day after ruling out her own Senate bid, Rep. Nancy Mace endorsed Rep. Ralph Norman for the South Carolina special election on July 21, 2026, breaking publicly with President Trump, who had endorsed Lindsey Graham's sister Darline Graham Nordone on July 17. Norman accepted the endorsement while pledging to 'stand with President Trump,' the same president whose candidate he and Mace are now both running against. Filing opens today and closes July 28, with the primary set for August 11.
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.
July 28, 2026 · Dispatch'He believed that showing up mattered': Mace issues a press release as every other SC House Republican attends Graham's funeral
On July 28, 2026, Sen. Lindsey Graham's casket lay in the US Capitol Rotunda and then was carried to Washington National Cathedral for his funeral. Every other South Carolina House Republican was there. Rep. Sheri Biggs and Rep. Joe Wilson presented wreaths at his casket. Reps. Russell Fry and Ralph Norman accompanied the South Carolina delegation. Rep. Nancy Mace, who spent two weeks publicly weighing a run for Graham's Senate seat and publicly clashing with him during his lifetime, did not attend. Her office issued a press release statement instead. Filing for the special election primary closed at noon the same day.
- July 20, 2026 · Dispatch
"If you're running for two offices at once, you've already told us who you are": Nancy Mace objects to sitting House members seeking the Senate, without naming Russell Fry
Fifty-nine minutes after Rep. Russell Fry announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate on July 20, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace posted a standalone statement on X, without naming Fry: 'If you're running for two offices at once, you've already told us who you are. That's not about politics anymore - that's about power.' She grounded the objection in House math, warning that a sitting Republican House member who wins the Senate seat in November vacates his seat until next May, narrowing an already thin majority, and writing 'I will never hand Hakeem Jeffries that gift.' Mace is not on the November 2026 ballot herself: she lost the June 9 Republican gubernatorial primary, did not seek reelection to her House seat, and has said her House term ends in January 2027.