Republican Nancy Mace is up for re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives in South Carolina's 1st congressional district

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace tightened her grip on her seat Tuesday in a state that doesn’t mind sending people back to Congress for decades.

Mace defeated Democratic businessman and former CEO of the International African American Museum Michael Moore to win a third term.

Questions had been raised about whether Mace’s attention-seeking personality and brashness and willingness to thwart her party’s establishment could be a problem. But her first district on the coast continues to embrace her.

“After tonight, anyone who dares can shoot at me – you better not miss,” Mace said at her victory party on Tuesday evening. “And for those who want to divide us, you are in the minority.”

Mace flipped the seat back to Republicans in 2020 after a stunning upset of incumbent Democrat Joe Cunningham. She fought a Republican challenger backed by former President Donald Trump in 2022 and scored a surprisingly easy victory — this time with Trump’s support — in the 2024 Republican primaries without a runoff.

Her fellow Republicans in the South Carolina General Assembly also did her a favor by redrawing the district, turning traditionally Democratic districts in and around downtown Charleston into the state’s only majority-minority district. According to the old map, Mace won less than 51% of the vote in 2020. With the new cards in 2022, she achieved more than 56%.

Moore and Mace’s Republican opponents in the 2024 primary said she is more concerned about national attention and charitable causes like legalizing marijuana than helping people in her district. She joined seven far-right members of the U.S. House of Representatives to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Mace said it’s her way of fighting for voters in her eclectic district, which includes century-old neighborhoods near Charleston and huge developments of retirees around Beaufort who have moved to South Carolina.

“The simplest explanation is almost always the right one. I am on your side,” Mace said Tuesday evening.

Mace is now on track to become a fixture in South Carolina’s U.S. House of Representatives delegation, like Democrat Jim Clyburn, who was elected to a seventeenth term, or Republican Joe Wilson, who won a twelfth term .

Wilson defeated Democrat David Robinson II in the 2nd District, which includes suburban areas around Columbia and west and south toward Aiken.

Wilson sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is the senior member of the House Armed Services Committee. He is also remembered as the congressman who shouted, “You’re lying!” at Barack Obama during the president’s joint address to Congress on health care in 2009.

Clyburn has represented the state’s 6th District since it was elected in 1992 to have a majority of minority voters. This year, he defeated Republican challenger and attorney Duke Buckner in the sprawling district bordered by areas around Charleston, Beaufort and Columbia.

Clyburn is a key member of the Democratic leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives, and his support for President Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential primaries in South Carolina led to a path to victory for his longtime friend.

Republican U.S. Rep. William Timmons won a fourth term in the 4th District, which includes Greenville and Spartanburg.

Perhaps no challenger worked harder than his opponent, Democrat Kathryn Harvey. She raised a surprising amount of money and traveled throughout the district, while Timmons spent most of his time out of state campaigning for Republicans in races he believes are more competitive as he tries to ensure the U.S. House is under Republican control remains.

For the second election in a row, Timmons had to win a tough Republican primary, in which his opponent tried to portray him as a liberal.

But the 4th District, which has sent a Republican to Washington in every election since 1992, remains firmly conservative.

South Carolina will have at least one new face in the U.S. House. Nurse and Air National Guard officer Sheri Biggs won an open seat Tuesday, becoming only the second Republican woman to run for Congress from South Carolina, after Mace.

Biggs takes over for Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan, who decided not to run for an eighth term in the 3rd District, the most Republican in the solidly conservative state. The district in the northwest corner of the state contains several small population centers.

U.S. Rep. Russell Fry won a second term in the 7th District, which stretches from Myrtle Beach to Florence in the northeastern part of the state. Fry in 2022 unseated an incumbent Republican who voted to impeach Trump.

And in the 5th District, Republican U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman will get a fourth full term in the district ranges from Rock Hill in the southern and eastern suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, to Sumter.