How have Nancy Mace's votes on social issues (abortion, LGBTQ rights) affected her popularity?

1. A documented policy swing that changed the narrative

Mace arrived in Congress with a record that included votes to codify same-sex marriage protections and support access to contraception, and she publicly described herself as supportive of LGBTQ rights in 2021 and 2023, but reporting documents a clear rightward shift around the 2024 cycle — including introducing a resolution restricting transgender women’s bathroom access in the Capitol — that converted earlier allies into critics ^{[1] [4] [5]}.

2. Abortion positions: nuance that pleased some, alienated others

On abortion, Mace has repeatedly framed a middle path — voting consistently conservative on many measures while insisting on exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother — a posture that allowed her to champion exceptions in a six‑week ban in South Carolina and to author measures like the Standing with Moms Act, even as national pro‑life groups publicly faulted her as inconsistent or insufficiently committed to pro‑life strategy ^{[5] [2]}.

3. Immediate audience reactions: base gains, activist backlash

The practical political payoff of Mace’s pivot has been uneven: conservative activists and some MAGA‑aligned outlets and allies rewarded her later rightward turn — coverage notes she became a strong Trump backer and aligned with hard‑right House tactics — while LGBTQ and reproductive‑rights groups mobilized against her when she introduced anti‑trans measures or voted against expansions like the Equality Act ^{[6] [1] [5]}.

4. Local voters and electoral impact: mixed signals, not a rout

Local reporting and analysis show voters in her district recognized the maneuvering as political calculation and sometimes accepted it as “politics,” and Mace has translated her positioning into larger margins in certain cycles — suggesting her shifts did not alienate a sufficient number of constituents to cost her immediate office — but that does not mean universal approval among moderates who had previously supported her stance on LGBTQ and reproductive issues ^{[3] [5]}.

5. Institutional scorecards and interest‑group responses shape reputation

Her voting record has attracted divergent scorecards: conservative scorecards credit her high alignment on many GOP priorities, while reproductive‑freedom organizations and LGBTQ advocates track and publicize votes where she sided with or against protections, using those tallies to amplify praise or condemnation and thereby affecting how different constituencies perceive her popularity ^{[7] [8] [2]}.

6. Political calculus: popularity among whom, and at what cost?

The editorial throughline of the coverage is that Mace’s tactical retreat from earlier, more moderate pronouncements toward a harder conservative posture bought her credibility with GOP activists and leaders at the possible cost of alienating swing voters and inspiring sustained criticism from advocacy groups; how costly that tradeoff is will depend on future contests, but current reporting shows her popularity is more consolidated on the right and more contested among independents and progressives ^{[6] [1] [3]}.

7. What the sources do and do not show

Available reporting establishes the votes, public statements and reactions from advocacy groups and some voters, and it records shifts in alliances — but the sources do not provide consistent, up‑to‑date public‑opinion polling that quantifies net changes in her approval across the district after each specific vote, so precise numeric shifts in overall popularity cannot be stated from the supplied material ^{[3] [9]}.