Pro-TikTok PAC Launched Ad Blitz for Nancy Mace as She Tried to Kill Divestment Measure

The Club for Growth has opposed congressional action against TikTok since last year.

T he same day that Representative Nancy Mace (R., S.C.) moved to strike legislation that would force the sale of social-media app TikTok, a political-action committee funded by one of the tech company’s top investors ordered nearly $1.25 million in ads supporting the Republican lawmaker’s reelection campaign.

The conservative political powerhouse Club for Growth counts Jeffrey Yass, a leading investor in TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance, among its donors. Mace and the Club for Growth both denied that they had coordinated their actions.

It’s nevertheless noteworthy timing for a major investment in Mace’s reelection campaign, a contest in which she’s facing stiff opposition from two primary challengers.

In comments to National Review, Michael Sobolik, the author of Countering China’s Great Game and a former Senate foreign-policy adviser, pointed to the security concerns posed by TikTok, which include the possibility of the Chinese government’s forcing ByteDance to allow it to spy on American users. He said: “Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle must prioritize the security of their constituents above their own political contributions.”

Mace claims that the legislation violates the Bill of Rights. Sobolik, now a senior fellow in Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, disagrees.

“The U.S. Constitution does not protect the Chinese Communist Party. ByteDance cannot appeal to the Bill of Rights. To suggest otherwise is to turn our founding documents into a suicide pact. Those are the stakes with TikTok. It’s the CCP’s most dangerous asymmetric weapon against Americans,” he says.

The House took TikTok and its allies on Capitol Hill by surprise last month when it quickly introduced and passed the divestiture bill, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. That bill, which would compel ByteDance to sell TikTok within six months or face a ban in the U.S., languished in the Senate, where some lawmakers doubted whether it could survive legal challenge. But an amended version was wrapped into, and passed with, the foreign-assistance package that President Biden signed last Wednesday.

Throughout this period, the Club for Growth had reportedly lobbied hard against the TikTok legislation, contacting lawmakers ahead of the initial House vote. It initially opposed congressional action against TikTok last year, when CFG president David McIntosh wrote an op-ed defending the company from a different bill.

In recent months, Yass’s sizeable stake in ByteDance — which, according to the Financial Times, makes up a hefty portion of his personal wealth — has started to draw attention considering his contributions to TikTok’s staunchest defenders. He’s also a major supporter of the Club for Growth.

While Yass contributed $15 million to Texas governor Greg Abbott after he banned TikTok from government devices, and while many of the politicians that the Club for Growth supports are longtime TikTok hawks, ByteDance’s loudest allies in Congress have also received support from Yass or the Club for Growth.

Yass donated $4.5 million to Club for Growth Action, the PAC, on March 20, a week after the initial House vote.

Mace, who voted against the TikTok bill the first time it came up, in March, made a last-ditch effort to cut it from the foreign-assistance legislation this month.

On the morning of April 18, she posted a picture on X of a proposed amendment to the House package that she had just introduced. “This is an amendment to strike the TikTok bill. If we are going to protect national security and American consumers then do it — but don’t do it in a meaningless unconstitutional messaging bill,” she wrote.

Mace’s proposed amendment didn’t end up succeeding, but it marked a significant shift in her stance from late 2022. On the final day of that year, she had made a post to X stating that “the National Security assessments surrounding TikTok are startling” and urging Congress to hold hearings and ban it from government devices.

Also on April 18, the day Mace proposed her amendment to the House package aimed at excluding the TikTok measure, Club for Growth Action bought nearly $1.25 million in television and radio advertisements with stations across Mace’s congressional district, which covers Charleston, according to mandatory disclosures filed with the Federal Communications Commission and documents reviewed by National Review.

One example of the purchases placed that day was a $73,789 order with Charleston’s local CBS news affiliate for that advertising cycle. The 30-second spot touts former president Donald Trump’s endorsement of Mace, portraying her as a “conservative fighter for the Lowcountry.” The ads will run through June 11, the date of South Carolina’s congressional primary elections.

Mace’s office flatly denied that the Club for Growth had urged the congresswoman to propose the amendment or oppose legislation tackling TikTok more generally.

“No, Mace has been publicly opposed to the TikTok ban since 2023, and CFG has consistently applauded her policy decision making since 2021,” said Gabrielle Lipsky, communications director for Mace. “She voted against the TikTok ban the first time it hit the floor in March because she strongly believes that it constitutes an egregious violation of the First and Fifth amendments.”

McIntosh, CFG’s president, also denied that there was any coordination between Mace and his organization regarding TikTok. He said that it did not ask Mace to take a position and, citing Mace’s 93 percent score on the group’s “scorecard,” that “the decision to support her candidacy was not based on her position on TikTok, although we agree with her.”

“It was made based on her score and commitment to limited government,” he said.

McIntosh also said, “Jeff Yass has never requested Club to take a position or action on his behalf on TikTok or any other issue.” Through a spokesman, Yass declined to comment.