Top Mace adviser leaves her campaign, citing loyalty to Trump

A top consultant to Rep. Nancy Mace’s campaign for South Carolina governor announced his resignation Monday, saying the gubernatorial hopeful has “decided to turn her back on MAGA.”

Austin McCubbin, a longtime Republican operative, bashed Mace in a post on X and accused her of trying to “hug the political cactus that is the Rand Paul [and] Thomas Massie wing of the Party” and questioned the third-term member of Congress’ ties to the Protect Freedom PAC — a Paul-aligned committee.

In his post, McCubbin claimed Mace told him she directed a friend to steer a “7-figure check” to the PAC, calling her “wittingly or unwittingly a proxy for Rand Paul’s 2028 presidential campaign.”

That conversation, he said, was the catalyzing moment behind his decision to leave the campaign. POLITICO has not independently verified the claim.

“My name has been used publicly, while going back on her word to pay me, to trade on my Team Trump status and to work on her behalf with the White House, and I am 100% breaking with her campaign out of loyalty to the President,” he wrote.

A spokesperson for Mace, in a statement in response to McCubbin’s post, said: “Mr. McCubbin didn’t raise a dime for the campaign or better yet, never even bothered showing up. When he demanded $10,000 a month for ‘services’ and was told no, he ran straight to X. Good luck with that.”

President Donald Trump’s endorsement is all but certain to help propel his preferred candidate into Columbia’s top post. Mace — like the other candidates in the crowded field — has been angling for the president’s endorsement since her entry to the race in August.

“My advice to the President, my friends in the White House, and South Carolina Trump voters: scratch her name from the list,” McCubbin wrote.

Mace’s campaign for governor announced McCubbin’s hire as one of the campaign’s “lead consultants” in a press release earlier this year, touting his close ties to the successful Trump campaign operations in the Palmetto State during the 2024 election. The two had also worked together previously: McCubbin managed Mace’s first reelection bid in 2022.

“This is about loyalty,” McCubbin wrote, calling current Gov. Henry McMaster a “great governor” who has been “very loyal” to Trump. “South Carolina needs someone cut from the same cloth, where you know their word is their bond,” he added.