3. Speaking of which: Don’t break with the base on policy.

Mace has been described as a moderate, but that’s a misnomer: She holds a 95 percent lifetime rating from the Club for Growth and a 94 percent score from Heritage Action, two groups that gauge lawmakers’ fealty to conservative principles. Rice scored 83 percent on both indexes — dangerous territory in the deep-red Pee Dee region of South Carolina.

Although the Club for Growth stayed out of her race, Mace did benefit from $160,000 in spending from Americans for Prosperity, another conservative outside group funded by the Koch brothers. No national outside groups spent money on Rice’s behalf.

Even minor heresies, like Mace’s support for legalizing marijuana, underscored her carefully cultivated image as an independent thinker and gave her a useful measure of distance from Trump.

“Nancy polished the ring; she didn’t kiss the ring,” Felkel said.