Pete Hegseth removed her from one of the most senior posts in the United States Navy. On Tuesday, South Carolina Democrats handed her a comeback. Retired Navy Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore won the Democratic primary runoff in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, setting up a November showdown for the seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace.
The Associated Press called the race for Lacore, who took 52% of the vote over Charleston attorney Mac Deford. The result caps a remarkable turn for a career military officer who, less than a year ago, was running roughly 59,000 sailors as chief of the Navy Reserve.
From the Pentagon to the Ballot
Lacore spent 35 years in the Navy, rising to the rank of three-star vice admiral and reaching the top of the Navy Reserve’s leadership structure. That trajectory was cut short when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed her as part of a broader sweep of senior military officials early in the administration.
Rather than retreat into a quiet retirement, Lacore relocated to South Carolina last fall and launched a congressional campaign built squarely on her record of service and the circumstances of her departure. Her candidacy turned a personnel decision made in Washington into a live political question in a coastal swing district.
The Runoff Result
The Democratic field narrowed to a runoff between Lacore and Deford, a Coast Guard veteran who previously served as general counsel for the town of Hilton Head Island. Lacore’s 52% margin was enough for the AP to declare her the nominee on Tuesday night.
She now advances to the general election, where she will face Republican Jenny Costa Honeycutt in November. The winner takes the seat currently held by Mace, who chose to run for governor rather than seek re-election to the House.
A District Drawn to Favor Republicans
The 1st District is no easy target for Democrats. The coastal seat was redrawn earlier this decade to be more reliably Republican, and Mace won her past two elections by double-digit margins. Flipping it would require Lacore to outperform the district’s recent partisan lean by a significant stretch.
National Democrats are betting it is possible. House Majority PAC, the party’s main House super PAC, has reserved millions of dollars in advertising in the district for the fall, a signal that the seat is on the list of races Democrats believe could be competitive in a favorable cycle.
What This Means for Voters
Lacore’s campaign puts a pointed question in front of South Carolina voters: what happens when a decorated officer is pushed out of public service by political appointees, and who gets to decide whether that was the right call? Her run reframes a Pentagon shakeup as a matter of accountability that voters themselves can weigh in on at the ballot box. For residents of the 1st District, the choice in November now carries an unusually direct line back to a decision made in Washington.
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