Brian Kemp’s victory in Georgia has been endlessly hyped as proof that Trump’s grip on the party isn’t as tight as he thinks, and understandably so. There’s no Republican whom Trump wanted to beat more; he spent 16 months informally and then formally campaigning against Kemp. If GOP voters were slavishly obedient to Trump’s whims, the governor would have been ridden out of Georgia on a rail.

He ended up crushing Trump’s proxy candidate, David Perdue, by nearly 50 points instead. It was a big deal.

But it also came packaged with a ready excuse for Trump: Incumbent governors are hard to beat. Republicans will do his bidding by carrying out his grudges in congressional primaries because who cares about Congress, right? Congress doesn’t do anything anymore. Governors are different. They act every day in ways that might bear directly on your life. And in Georgia, Democrats are running a potential political superstar in Stacey Abrams on the other side of the ballot. Republican voters there couldn’t risk throwing away a strong candidate like Kemp in favor of a weak one like Perdue, no matter how eager they are to please Trump.

Tomorrow night we test that theory. Was Kemp’s victory really a product of Republican voters making a special exception from their Trump loyalties in gubernatorial primaries? What should we conclude about Trump’s influence if he goes all-in to beat a House Republican — a freshman backbencher, no less — and whiffs there too?

We’re on the cusp of seeing it happen. I think Nancy Mace is going to beat Trump’s candidate, Katie Arrington, in SC-1. And if that’s not intriguing enough for you, I think she’s going to do it with a major lift from Trump frenemy Nikki Haley.

Rather than give you the full recap on Mace’s brief career and how she landed on Trump’s sh*t list, I’ll point you back to this post from February. After Trump endorsed Arrington, Mace proved there was virtually no part of her dignity she wasn’t willing to sacrifice in the name of re-ingratiating herself to his voters:

I’m standing in front of Trump Tower with a message this morning…#SC01 #LowcountryFirst pic.twitter.com/CpmMYA63qt

— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) February 10, 2022

She’s a fascinating contrast to Kemp inasmuch as Kemp infuriated Trump by what he did, not what he said, whereas Mace has infuriated Trump by what she said, not what she did. Granted, she refused to object to certifying Biden’s electoral votes on January 6, but lots of other Republicans did the same. And after that she behaved more or less like a garden variety Trumper in Congress. She contrived an excuse to vote against impeachment. She didn’t oppose Liz Cheney’s ouster from leadership. She played nice with MAGA.

But she did make it known at times in her comments that she wasn’t a Trump fan. “I want to be a new voice for the Republican Party. And that’s one of the reasons I’ve spoken out so strongly against the president, against these QAnon conspiracy theorists that led us in a constitutional crisis. It’s just wrong, and we’ve got to put a stop to it,” she said early in her term. On January 7, 2021, she declared that Trump’s “entire legacy was wiped out yesterday.” Reportedly she’s also been known “to exclaim passionately about how much she despised Trump” in her congressional office, per several former aides who spoke to Politico.

I assume that got back to Trump since he’s also exclaimed passionately at times how much he dislikes Mace despite her voting almost in lockstep with the MAGA caucus. He mocked her for her ad in front of Trump Tower at a rally for Arrington in March and has called her “crazy!” “terrible!” and “bad for the Republican Party!” This weekend, he reminded South Carolinians again whom he’s supporting. “Don’t forget that Katie Arrington, a wonderful person, is running against the terrible Nancy Mace, who really let us down,” he said in a statement. “Nancy fights Republicans all the time and is not at all nice about it. Frankly, she is despised by almost everyone, and who needs that in Congress, or in the Republican Party.”

Trump has made very, very clear to the voters of SC-1 who he is and isn’t supporting. Are they prepared to do him a favor in this otherwise low-key, unimportant primary?

My guess is … no. Mace is going to win, thanks in part to a not-so-secret weapon.

Big event for @NancyMace in Summerville yesterday! We're on the way to Hilton Head today. Come and see us at The Smokehouse at 3pm!

Tickets: https://t.co/aFJYTapzMX pic.twitter.com/krjKiwT0Pa

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) June 13, 2022

Nancy Mace garnering quite the attention here on Hilton Head with former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley ahead of Tuesday’s primary election. @WSAV pic.twitter.com/p414ciuyJu

— Brian Kenny Gallagher (@The_BKG) June 13, 2022

The Mace/Haley alliance is fascinating on its own terms given the rumors of bad blood between them in years past. Haley endorsed Mace just a few days before Trump endorsed Arrington, which led me to wonder at the time if Haley might lose her nerve again when faced with Trump’s wrath and retract her endorsement. She didn’t. As you can see, not only did she stick with it, she put her own skin in the game here by campaigning side by side with Mace in the campaign’s final days. If Mace pulls this race out, Haley’s going to get some flattering media coverage about her lingering strength in South Carolina, where she was governor for six years, and whether she might have 2024 potential after all.

The fact that Haley is willing to appear with Mace in the first place, knowing that she’ll be blamed or credited for the outcome of the race by doing so, is a clue that Mace’s internal polling must look good. Two recent polls also point to a Mace victory. One, from Trafalgar, had her leading Arrington by six points. Another from a pro-Mace group had her up 44/24(!!!). I’m skeptical that Mace wins in a landslide, but if she does it would be a special humiliation for Trump, particularly given Haley’s involvement.

Mace sounds confident:

2022 Watch: @RepNancyMace – facing a #GOP primary challenge from #DonaldTrump backed @karringtonsc in #SC01 -tells @FoxNews she's "cautiously optimistic," but touts “we have overwhelming support…we're gonna win by double digits” https://t.co/ZHtVnUPjf9#2022elections #scpol pic.twitter.com/DRYmdbws8x

— Paul Steinhauser (@steinhauserNH1) June 13, 2022

Maybe Trump ends up a winner here no matter what. Having survived her electoral near-death experience, I doubt Mace will make any more trouble for him going forward. She’s even pledged to support him again in 2024 if he runs. (So much for him having destroyed his legacy on January 6.) She’ll probably be a good lapdog in the future.

But there’s a chance that the lesson she’ll take from this is that Trump can’t touch her, especially with Haley in her corner. That’s the lesson he’s afraid of. The more Kemps and Maces there are who cross him and win, the more the rest of the congressional GOP will conclude that they can get away with crossing him too. At least if they can get some prominent Republican surrogate like Haley or Mike Pence to support them as a counterweight.

The final frontier in Trump defiance is voting for impeachment and winning your next primary anyway. That hasn’t happened yet — but that’s also on the ballot tomorrow night in South Carolina, as Tom Rice faces the voters of SC-7. A recent Trafalgar poll had Rice trailing his opponent by 17, a grim result. But Rice is a happy warrior, at peace with his impeachment vote and completely unapologetic for it. “Bring on the circus,” he told the Times about Trump endorsing his opponent. “You know, some people are afraid of clowns. I’m not afraid of clowns.”