A retired Navy vice admiral whom Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed from the Pentagon last year is going to Congress. Democrat Nancy Lacore has defeated Republican Jenny Costa Honeycutt in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, 49.65 percent to 48.64 percent — a margin of about 3,300 votes with every precinct reporting. Decision Desk HQ has called the race for Lacore; the Associated Press has not yet called it. Honeycutt has conceded, and outgoing Rep. Nancy Mace, who held the seat, has congratulated Lacore.
Lacore served 35 years in the Navy and rose to Chief of Navy Reserve before Hegseth removed her in August 2025, in a broader shake-up of senior military leaders. She announced her run in January, then won the Democratic nomination in a June runoff. Her opponent, Charleston County Council member Honeycutt, ran with President Trump’s backing to hold the seat for Republicans after Mace gave it up to run for governor — a bid Mace lost earlier this year.
The district, on South Carolina’s coast around Charleston, was redrawn to favour Republicans and voted for Trump by 13 points in 2024. Lacore is the first Democrat to win it under the current map. South Carolina law requires a recount when the margin is 1 percent or less unless the losing candidate waives it in writing; Lacore said the final Dorchester County totals widened her lead beyond that threshold. She takes office on January 3.
She arrives in Washington as part of the new Democratic House majority — which means the Pentagon leadership that ended her Navy career will now answer questions from a Congress that includes her. For voters in the district, the flip also hands them a representative from the party running the House: the oversight, investigations and spending fights of the next two years will be shaped by the majority she now belongs to.
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