The Tea Party Leadership Fund has decided to endorse Nancy Mace, a conservative challenger to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), in the upcoming GOP Senate primary in the state, Breitbart News has learned.
“Big government politician Lindsey Graham has provided aid and comfort to to the Obama majority in the Senate,” the national group’s founder Todd Cefaratti said in a statement provided to Breitbart News. “Whether it’s a disastrous open borders amnesty plan or opposing permanent tax cuts for the middle class, Graham has sought fawning coverage from the liberal mainstream media.
“It’s long past time we had a conservative of conscience, not a conservative of convenience, representing South Carolina,” Cefaratti continued. “In Nancy Mace, we have a candidate that tea party groups and conservatives across the state can unite behind, and finally we can send Lindsey Graham into retirement.”
Mace appeared on Breitbart News Sunday with Stephen K. Bannon this weekend to discuss why she is running, her history as a small business owner, and being the first woman to graduate from The Citadel. She said the military environment she was brought up in will help her stick to conservative principles if South Carolina voters send her to Washington in place of Graham.
“Do you bend your values and your principles to conform to the quote-unquote establishment to go along to get along, or do you stay firm and stay strong in what you believe in to be successful?” Mace said of her Citadel military history. “And I learned the latter.”
Mace has also come out strong against Graham’s role in the “Gang of Eight,” the group of eight U.S. Senators that pushed for an immigration bill that would grant legal status, or amnesty, to illegal immigrants before securing the border or enforcing the nation’s interior immigration laws.
“Amnesty does not sell down here,” Mace said on Breitbart News Sunday. “People are very upset with it.”