Rep. Nancy Mace bragged about helping secure the largest infrastructure grant in her state’s history—even though she voted against the legislation that made those funds available.
The MAGA lawmaker announced earlier this month she was joining a crowded field in next year’s GOP primary race to succeed South Carolina’s term-limited governor.
During an interview aired on the far-right NewsMax2, Mace talked up her candidacy by touting her ties to President Donald Trump and discussing her record of delivering for South Carolinians.
“In my time in Congress, I actually helped secure the largest infrastructure grant in state history, in South Carolina history,” she said. “So, I’ve worked very hard on the policies that matter to voters here.”
Last year, the Biden administration awarded South Carolina a record $195 million grant to help fund the Long Point Road Interchange project, a highway interchange that will ease congestion by giving truckers direct access to the Port of Charleston.
The grant was funded by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which allocated $110 billion to repair roads, bridges, and other large projects, and $39 billion to modernize transit.
Mace, however, voted against the legislation. “If we’re going to do infrastructure, then let’s actually build something,” she said in a statement at the time.
That hasn’t stopped her from repeatedly taking credit for grants funded by the infrastructure act.
In 2023, she described a $26 million grant for a new transit center as a “win” for the Lowcountry on the southern Atlantic coast, local TV news station WCSC Live 5 reported.
A year later, she tried to lay claim to the record-breaking interchange project as well.
“We hate traffic just as much as you do,” she wrote in a social media post. “We helped secure $195 million—the largest grant in South Carolina’s history from the U.S. Department of Transportation—to kick off the Long Point Road Interchange Project!”
The Biden White House called her out on the about-face, posting her voting statement alongside her celebratory comment and writing, “Classic.”
Mace tried to defend her stance, writing in a social media post that “of course” she opposed the infrastructure package because it was full of “partisan pork.”
“But now that it’s law, that money’s getting spent whether we like it or not—so you better believe we’re making sure it gets reinvested right here in South Carolina,” she wrote.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Mace’s office for comment.
The congresswoman made a similar argument earlier this month during a town hall, saying that for lawmakers, it was “literally our job” to make sure the states they represent receive federal appropriations.
She then went off on a reporter who asked her to address the inconsistency of voting against the funding and then taking credit for how it was appropriated.
“Maybe you’re confused,” she said. “You’re very confused. And you’re a raging Democrat, a raging leftist with that kind of questioning. And I would say as a woman, you might want to think about how you view other women and how you treat other women and the way you question them.”
She then lectured the reporter about how the first female president would be a conservative woman, “not some liberal like you,” and told her to read the Constitution.
