Rep. Elise Stefanik (right), R-New York, is acknowledged by President-elect Donald Trump alongside Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (left), R-Louisiana, during a House Republicans Conference meeting on Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington, DC.

Rep. Nancy Mace is slamming House Speaker and fellow Republican Rep. Mike Johnson, as discord among the caucus continues to spill into the public sphere.

The South Carolina congresswoman, who is also running in the state's 2026 gubernatorial election, unleashed on Johnson in an op-ed in the New York Times on Monday, Dec. 8. In the piece, she accused House leadership of marginalizing rank-and-file members and called them out for lacking accountability.

She focused her sharpest critiques on her own party leaders, calling their management of the caucus "restrictive and ineffective," saying they were "betraying" the coalition that brought them to Congress and casting aside women members.

"Women will never be taken seriously until leadership decides to take us seriously, and I’m no longer holding my breath," Mace wrote in the opinion article. "Since 2013, the Republican conference chair position has gone to a woman. It’s the token slot, the designated leadership role for the top woman in the conference, while the real power lies in other offices."

Mace is only the latest Republican to take shots at Johnson, as the GOP continues to struggle with internal rancor. Pressure has been building on the party over the past few months as the 2026 midterm elections come into focus and Republicans pick up the pieces from a Nov. 4 election that ended in a Democratic sweep. Many of those key races, including for governors of New Jersey and Virginia, swung blue amid voter discontent over inflation and cost of living.

At the same time, the party's top leader, President Donald Trump, ran up against a GOP rebellion in Congress over demands that his Department of Justice release the Jeffrey Epstein files. Johnson and Trump initially opposed the release of the trove of files related to investigations into the late convicted sex offender, until a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Mace, used a little-known legislative method to force a vote on their release. It passed in both chambers nearly unanimously.

Mace accused Republicans of pressuring conservatives to get on board with more moderate policies, and said major decisions are made by a small group of GOP legislators behind closed doors.

"Here’s a hard truth Republicans don’t want to hear: Nancy Pelosi was a more effective House speaker than any Republican this century," Mace wrote. "I agree with her on essentially nothing. But she understood something we don’t: No majority is permanent."

Mace went on to warn that the party will lose its majority if it fails to pass legislation that she said "permanently secures the border, addresses the affordability crisis, improves health care and restores law and order."

Her comments come after another top Republican congresswoman, Rep. Elise Stefanik, also tore into Johnson in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published Dec. 3.

The New York congressmember called the Louisiana Republican leading the House ineffective and a "political novice." Stefanik, formerly the fourth-ranking House Republican and now a candidate for governor of New York, said Johnson has lost control of his conference, which has a narrow hold on the chamber.

"He certainly wouldn’t have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll-call vote tomorrow," Stefanik told the newspaper. "I believe that the majority of Republicans would vote for new leadership."

Kathryn Palmer is a politics reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr. Sign up for her daily politics newsletter here.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nancy Mace blasts GOP leadership, Speaker Mike Johnson in op-ed

Reporting by Kathryn Palmer, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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