“Heart and Soul of America”
For weeks, South Carolinians demanding that Mr. Rice vote against the election results have been jamming calls in Mr. Rice’s congressional office.
In an interview, Rice said, “She spent 30 minutes revealing to me how unsigned truckloads of absentee ballots were being accepted. “It was very high intensity at the time.”
Rice, 65, a former Myrtle Beach tax attorney and accountant, was elected to local office in a Tea Party wave in 2010 and elected to Congress two years later. campaign eventhe called the 2020 election “a battle for the heart and soul of America”, predicted that Democrats would not “play fair”, and urged Republicans to get all the votes. led by 24 points in the constituency, beating Trump’s margin.
Mr. Rice is in many ways the quintessential opponent. They are disproportionately white, male, and Christian compared to the general public and Congress as a whole. Of the 139 members of Congress, 17 are women, 7 are black or Latinx, and 2 are Jewish. (Three people died and one resigned from parliament after the vote.)
Because of partisan gerrymandering and decades of categorizing Americans into like-minded communities (northern or southern, urban or rural), all but half a dozen opponents represented their constituencies. and the Republican Party is so staunch that the main challenge could be the only meaningful campaign. Even though more than a third come from blue or battlefield states.
Like other members of Congress, many pursued professional careers as accountants, lawyers, doctors, and dentists before moving to the Capitol. 3 He has a dozen military experience and advanced degrees, more than half of whom have PhDs (animal nutrition, British history, public policy), including three of him. About 18 of them—he’s Mr. Boebert and Mr. Mullin—never earned his traditional four-year degree, according to congressional biographies.
About half were elected first thanks to Trump, following the pattern of the larger Republican caucuses. About a third had never held a previously elected office. Some, like Rice, live in cities, but many live in more rural areas.
