The Kevin McCarthy revenge tour gets ready for opening night: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.

In today’s edition, we report on Act I of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's revenge tour. Plus, senior political editor Mark Murray breaks down the polling gap between Joe Biden and Donald Trump on compassion and toughness.

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Kevin McCarthy’s first target in his revenge tour: Nancy Mace

By Ali Vitali, Bridget Bowman and Kyle Stewart

DANIEL ISLAND, S.C. — Rep. Nancy Mace is no stranger to an intraparty battle. Now, her role in a big Republican fight last year — the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker — is complicating her primary on Tuesday.

Mace, who is both a candidate seeking her third term and her own campaign manager, has earned the ire of the highest ranks of Republicans in the few short years she’s been in Washington. In 2022, it was former President Donald Trump — though they’ve since patched things up. Then, a year later, she voted in historic fashion to boot a House speaker from her own party.

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In fact, McCarthy is the first thing Mace points to when asked about the stakes of her latest political fight against a primary challenger running with McCarthy’s support.

“It’s about revenge,” Mace told NBC News in an interview at her campaign headquarters. “It’s also about honesty and integrity. And my vote to oust Kevin McCarthy was about trust.”

Mace says she doesn’t regret the vote. McCarthy, for his part, has said his support of GOP candidates challenging several of “the crazy eight,” as he calls