[3] Mace worked for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign,[4] but strongly condemned his actions surrounding the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack.

[26] On September 18, 2017, Mace filed as a Republican to run in a special election for the South Carolina State House District 99 seat being vacated by Jimmy Merrill, who resigned earlier that month after an indictment and plea deal for several ethics violations.

[29] In 2019, Mace successfully advocated for the inclusion of exceptions for rape and incest in a bill for a six-week abortion ban that passed the South Carolina state house.

[32] The Conservation Voters of South Carolina gave Mace a 100% Lifetime rating for her voting record against offshore drilling and seismic testing.

[37][38] In June 2019, Mace announced that she would seek the Republican nomination for South Carolina's 1st congressional district, centered in Charleston, and at the time represented by Democrat Joe Cunningham.

Cunningham won the seat in 2018 in a surprise victory, winning a district Trump had carried by 13 percentage points two years earlier.

Mace faced Mount Pleasant city councilwoman Kathy Landing and Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox in the June 9 Republican primary.

As a consequence, Trump endorsed former South Carolina representative Katie Arrington in the 2022 Republican primary for Mace's congressional seat.

These seven signed a letter that, while giving credence to Trump's allegations of electoral fraud, said Congress did not have the authority to influence the election's outcome.

While locked down in her Capitol office she told CBS News' Red & Blue host Elaine Quijano, "I'm begging the president to get off Twitter.

[50] In November 2021, Mace criticized fellow Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert for her anti-Muslim comments about Democrat Ilhan Omar.

[52][53][54] According to Mace, "McCarthy did not follow through on pushing her legislation to address the country's rape-kit backlog, expand access to birth control, adopt a balanced budget amendment and create an alert system that would notify people when there is a mass shooting".

[63] In February 2023, Mace, along with representatives Randy Weber (R‑TX 14th), Lizzie Fletcher (D‑TX 07th), Abigail Spanberger (D‑VA 07th), Don Davis (D‑NC 01st), and Anna Eshoo (D‑CA 16th), introduced the Reinvesting in Shoreline Economies and Ecosystems Act, which aims to share federal offshore wind power revenue with states for coastal protection and restoration work.

The bill "prevents the National Institute of Health (NIH) from conducting or supporting any research that causes significant pain and distress to dogs and cats."

Mace refused paramedics' assistance, but stated in court documents that she felt "pain in her wrists, arm and armpit/shoulder due to the incident".

A three-judge federal panel ruled in 2023 that Mace's congressional District 1 was redrawn in a "stark racial gerrymander" intended to suppress the power of Black voters.

The Court also noted that the plaintiff's decision not to provide an alternative map was an "implicit concession" that it could not draw one that would prove racial discrimination while achieving the same partisan outcome.

[81] In a July 2023 hearing, Mace questioned David Grusch, a former senior intelligence official and lead UAP analyst for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, about recovered nonhuman craft and biological remains.

In 2021, she cosponsored the Life at Conception Act, which would recognize a fertilized egg as a person with equal protections under the 14th Amendment and establish a nationwide abortion ban.

[91][92] Describing herself as "staunchly pro-life", she has also criticized abortion bans enacted in some states and called for Republicans to be more moderate on the issue,[93] and said she would only support legislation that "has exceptions of rape or incest and the life of the mother".

[118][better source needed] In 2025, Mace supported President Trump's proposal to send U.S. troops to take control of Gaza and remove the Gazans from the territory.

[119] During her 2014 U.S. Senate campaign, Mace said "We must use any means possible to repeal, defund, and ultimately stop Obamacare" because it will "suffocate individual liberty and further stifle economic growth".

"[123][124] Mace was one of eight Republicans who voted for the removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House and the only one of those eight not considered a far-right politician by a 538 analysis of the 118th Congress.

She fell in the "Compromise Conservatives" cluster instead, which the analysis noted tended to vote against hard-right messaging amendments but oppose bipartisan spending bills.

Among other functions, the center must serve as the department's principal adviser on the adoption and implementation of policies and programs affecting veterans who are LGBTQ.

"[132] At a House Oversight Committee hearing in February 2025, Mace used the slur[133][134] "tranny" to refer to trans people; when confronted, she repeated the word three times saying, "I don't really care.

"[144] As some trans activists were protesting her bill, Mace referred to them as "trannies", resulting in her posts on some social media being flagged for hateful content.

[155] A joint investigation by civilian and military agencies of the U.S. government failed to find "anything anomalous" and said that sightings included mistaken aircraft and other objects.

Explaining her vote, Mace said she was being "consistent" and wanted to retain the exercise of "the power to subpoena" in the event that Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in 2022.

[168] On June 1, 2021, the Charleston Police Department opened an investigation after Mace's home was vandalized with profanity, three anarchy symbols, and graffiti in support of the PRO Act.