Trump-Endorsed Russell Fry Defeats Impeachment Republican Tom Rice

FLORENCE, SC - MARCH 12: House of Representatives candidate Russell Fry waves to a crowd d
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Hannah Knudsen

Trump-backed conservative Russell Fry defeated incumbent Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) in South Carolina’s primary Tuesday evening, marking another successful endorsement for the former president.

Decision Desk HQ called the race late Tuesday night, as did others:

As of 10:47 p.m. Eastern time, with over 95 percent of the vote in, Fry led Rice 51.1 percent to 24.6 percent, per the New York Times. 

Rice, one of the ten House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, has continued to defend his decision to vote alongside Democrats, stating during a recent appearance on ABC’s This Week that he would only consider supporting Trump in the future if the former president apologized for January 6. Rice told This Week, defending his impeachment vote:

It wasn’t that hard. When I thought about what had happened and the president’s activity or inactivity that day, he sat there and put his own vice president’s life, and vice president’s wife’s and his daughter’s life at risk with people shouting, hang Mike Pence, when watched the Capitol being sacked, when he watched the Capitol police officers being beaten, for three or four hours, and lifted not one finger to stop it, it was clear to me what I had to.

“I was livid. I took an oath to protect the Constitution. I did it then, and I would do it tomorrow,” he said, also adding that RINO Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) would make a “great” Speaker of the House.

“I think she’s a real Republican. I think she is very conservative,” he said, describing her as a “fearless leader.”

State Rep. Russell Fry, however, has continued to draw a stark contrast between himself and the incumbent, whom he defeated Tuesday night, promising that he will “stand up for the America First agenda.”

“When you want conservative fighters in the ring, people who stand up for the America First agenda, right here in South Carolina, look no further than the Russell Fry campaign,” he said during a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday.

“People are fed up with Congressman Tom Rice, and he has been, you know, I think the impeachment vote really showed us who he was, and quite frankly, exposed a big frustration with him in general, which is where has he been on some of these issues that matter to the American people. And we see this continued leftward lurch,” he continued.

“Tom Rice, must think his voters are in the swamp in Washington, DC. But the reality is that the hardworking Americans, South Carolinians that are in the district, pay attention, they want to return to normalcy, they want to see their gas prices drop,” he added, explaining that Rice has “never been a conservative warrior.”

“He’s a self-described moderate. He was censured by the South Carolina Republican Party for his impeachment vote. He continually attacks conservatives, from President Trump all the way down to local activists,” he added.

Trump endorsed Fry in February after deeming Rice a “coward who abandoned his constituents by caving to Nancy Pelosi and the Radical Left.”

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