{"id":1280907,"date":"2022-02-08T09:23:18","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T14:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1280907"},"modified":"2022-02-08T09:23:30","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T14:23:30","slug":"exclusive-pro-trump-katie-arrington-launches-comeback-bid-in-south-carolina-challenging-establishment-nancy-mace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-pro-trump-katie-arrington-launches-comeback-bid-in-south-carolina-challenging-establishment-nancy-mace\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive \u2014 Pro-Trump Katie Arrington Launches Comeback Bid in South Carolina, Challenging Establishment Nancy Mace"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-pro-trump-katie-arrington-launches-comeback-bid-in-south-carolina-challenging-establishment-nancy-mace%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1280907&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/katie-arrington-running-congress-south-carolina-file2018-ap-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Pro-Trump conservative Katie Arrington will on Tuesday formally launch a congressional bid in South Carolina\u2019s first congressional district, she told Breitbart News exclusively on Monday evening. The race will pit Arrington against establishment GOP Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) \u2014 a major proxy battle for the future of the party in South Carolina\u2019s low country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe South Carolina low country needs to be represented by a true, pro-Trump conservative representative who\u2019s going to stand up,\u201d Arrington said in a phone interview. \u201cThe current congresswoman turned her back on the low country. She turned her back on President Trump, and she has not done what we asked her to go up there and do. She\u2019s more about branding herself and becoming a media personality than actually representing the priorities of the district, so we\u2019re going at it to represent the priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Arrington was previously the GOP nominee for this congressional district in the 2018 midterm elections. With Trump\u2019s support in the primary, she defeated then-Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC), the former governor of South Carolina who came back in a congressional special election only to then turn on now-former President Donald Trump. Trump endorsed Arrington on election day in the primary in South Carolina, and the brash conservative woman handily defeated Sanford.<\/p>\n<p>But, just a short time after vanquishing the Never Trump congressman in that year\u2019s primary, Arrington was a passenger <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2018\/06\/23\/arrington-defeated-sanford-seriously-injured-deadly-wreck\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">involved<\/a> in a deadly car crash. The driver of the other car was killed, and Arrington was relegated to the hospital and eventually a wheelchair for much of the rest of the campaign. The incident <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2018\/07\/16\/republican-arrington-lights-democrat-cunningham-politicizing-tragic-car-accident\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pulled<\/a> her off the trail for months and seemingly allowed now-former Democrat Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC) to slip past her and take the South Carolina seat \u2014 a Democrat win for the first time in decades. Mace then challenged Cunningham in 2020, defeating him and swinging the seat back to the GOP.<\/p>\n<p>Arrington told Breitbart News in what was her first interview in nearly four years since the end of the election in 2020 that she is feeling \u201cfantastic.\u201d Her campaign launch video, which she provided to Breitbart News exclusively ahead of its public release as well, shows her up and walking around \u2014 having made a full recovery from the 2018 accident.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n[embedded content]\n<p>In the ensuing years, Arrington worked in the Pentagon as a career national security official under both the administrations first of Trump and then of Democrat President Joe Biden, whose leftist team relentlessly targeted her because of her loyalty to Trump.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you for asking how I am \u2014 I am doing fantastic,\u201d Arrington said. \u201cSpending your life running around the Pentagon for three years, you get run back into physical condition with the concrete floors \u2014 and something around 22,000 steps a day. I am in great physical condition. I agree with you \u2014 it\u2019s the way of the Democrats. Joe Cunningham, in 2018, said, \u2018oh, I\u2019m not going to fundraise while she\u2019s in the hospital out of respect.\u2019 That absolutely was not the case. It was heartbreaking to recover from that. The loss is on me, I don\u2019t make mistakes twice, and the missteps that were made in that campaign will not be made in this campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Arrington has also hired Axiom Strategies, the political consulting firm run by GOP strategist Jeff Roe and Kristin Davison \u2014 the team that helped elect Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin \u2014 something she says is a sign she is ready to win. Ethan Zorfas from Axiom, who led the 2020 U.S. Senate campaign for Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), will overseee this race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve hired a national company, Axiom Strategies, to come in and help run this campaign and take on this mighty task. But taking on an incumbent doesn\u2019t bother me,\u201d Arrington said. \u201cNancy Mace doesn\u2019t bother me. I know what I bring to the district. I see what she hasn\u2019t. In 2018, I was sidelined by the accident \u2014 and not many people realize this, but three weeks after the accident, my mother passed away. It was just really hard to come back from all that financially, with people thinking it was a sure thing. I think that\u2019s one thing Americans and especially conservatives have realized, which is: We really need to make our voices heard. We need to do that through donations. We need to do that through grassroots efforts to maintain the integrity of the Republican Party because people like Mace up in D.C. \u2014 they\u2019re waffling. She\u2019s a lot like Mark Sanford in that she votes for what\u2019s best for her, not what\u2019s best for the district.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>Arrington, both in her interview with Breitbart News and in her campaign launch video, ripped Mace for a number of misguided moves including Mace\u2019s push to legalize marijuana. At one point in the video, Arrington even jokingly asks of Mace, \u201cIs she high?\u201d Arrington said her time in the Trump Pentagon prepared her to take on the issues she says voters in South Carolina\u2019s first district want to see their member of Congress focused on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeing inside the belly of the beast in the deep state for three years, and working for the vast majority of that during the Trump administration and actually seeing things getting done \u2014 I worked on Operation Warp Speed, I worked on the COVID pandemic directly with the president and I can\u2019t say enough about those people \u2014 what Biden has done in the past year and watching Nancy Mace absolutely apoplectic up there in D.C., I had to run,\u201d Arrington said. \u201cThere are things we absolutely need to get done. We have a congresswoman who\u2019s not paying attention and who\u2019s not using any of her self-branded media time to talk about inflation, to talk about border control, to talk about the huge gas prices. All she\u2019s worried about is taking selfies with Carol Baskin. She\u2019s going out to Monkey Island and trying to legalize marijuana, which undercuts what the state \u2014 Tom Davis, here in South Carolina \u2014 has been trying to do for a long time with medical marijuana. She is not prioritizing this district at all. That makes me really need to get up there.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>She also ripped Mace for a tendency to \u201cside with Democrats\u201d and for using her congressional perch for things like taking selfies with Carol Baskin of<em> Tiger King<\/em> fame and getting herself booked on leftist television networks like CNN.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u201cHey all you cats and kittens!\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Carol Baskin is up here this week talking Big Cats. We discussed the animal rights legislation she\u2019s championing (and more). \u2665\ufe0f \ud83d\udc05 \u2665\ufe0f \ud83d\udc05 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6ILVGWVG7d\">pic.twitter.com\/6ILVGWVG7d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NancyMace\/status\/1468380724923449346?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 8, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cNancy tends to side with Democrats and politicizing my role as a senior executive service member who was serving this nation, they made it really, really difficult,\u201d Arrington said. \u201cThey [the Biden administration] held onto my clearance and I had to sue them. It was a gut-wrenching decision to make. She should be scared. Nancy has not fulfilled her promises. She has never been a representative. I served with her in the statehouse in South Carolina and have watched her as a congresswoman. She is always looking for her next job. She\u2019s not focused on what she needs to get done at home. That\u2019s what I do \u2014 I get things done at home. She should be afraid. I intend to go to Congress and get things in line. We need some sanity up there, don\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>Arrington also ripped Mace for voting to hold former Trump adviser and former Breitbart News executive Steve Bannon in contempt over the January 6 nonsense, which she did last year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we need in Congress are strong, conservative Republicans that are going to be for President Trump\u2019s America First agenda first and foremost,\u201d Arrington said. \u201cI worked on the pandemic on the supply chain, I worked in the Department of Defense on our supply chain. We\u2019ve got to take Americans and make sure we\u2019re the priority, not the world. I talked about that in the previous campaign and it hasn\u2019t changed. That needs to be priority one. We need to work on getting this inflation under control. The Biden administration, and how they\u2019re looking at it, they just want to give people more money \u2014 no, that\u2019s not how it works. We have got to get this under control. You look at this horrendous deficit and what my grandchildren are inheriting because people like Nancy Mace are willing to vote yes with the Biden administration instead of having a backbone and standing for what conservatives believe in \u2014 that\u2019s family, protecting the unborn, and making sure our borders are secure. There is absolutely a ton that needs to get done and it\u2019s sad to see the RINOs going and voting like Mace \u2014 going and censuring Steve Bannon. Why? Do we not have enough crises in the world that we need to have somebody who goes into office to go vote with the Democrats to start censuring and subpoenaing the free press? That\u2019s not what we elected. That is not what we are about here in SC-1, I can tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A local news <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fitsnews.com\/2022\/02\/01\/sources-donald-trump-planning-endorsement-of-katie-arrington-in-south-carolina-congressional-race\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report<\/a> from the conservative Fits News, while forecasting a likely run from Arrington, predicted Trump is likely to endorse her if she gets in the race \u2014 as she is now doing. Trump has formally called for a primary challenge to Mace, and while he has yet to weigh in, Arrington said she hopes he will endorse her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPresident Trump is a very busy man, keeping the momentum of the GOP going and the fire in the belly of the true conservatives,\u201d Arrington said. \u201cThank God for him, Melania, and their family. They truly are American heroes in my eyes. They have not given up. I can only hope for an endorsement from President Trump. I hope he sees what I did in the Department of Defense for America to make sure we have the best in cyber security and national security over the past few years and what we did on the pandemic over the last few years to make sure we had the supplies that we needed and the security of Operation Warp Speed to make the vaccine available to whoever wants it. I sure hope he would endorse me, but we will see. I\u2019m running because the first congressional district needs a true conservative and not somebody who is going to side with Biden on silly things and go out and propose legislation that is not in line with where the priorities of this district are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served in the Trump administration as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, again crossed Trump this week when she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/politics\/nikki-haley-endorses-nancy-mace-for-reelection-to-congress-in-2022\/article_ef22d400-8820-11ec-b955-07917632dae4.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">endorsed<\/a> Mace\u2019s reelection bid. This battle, assuming Trump does get behind Arrington, would prove to be the ultimate proxy war for control of the future of the party between Trump and his allies and the more anti-Trump establishment forces seeking to regain power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pro-Trump conservative Katie Arrington will on Tuesday formally launch a congressional bid in South Carolina\u2019s first congressional district, she told Breitbart News exclusively on Monday evening. The race will pit &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1280907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1280907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1280907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1280907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1280907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}