Katie Arrington

2018 U.S. House campaign

Arrington announced she would run for Congress in South Carolina's 1st congressional district, challenging Mark Sanford for his seat in the House in the 2018 election cycle. The Republican primary drew national media attention as it was seen as a test of how independent of President Donald Trump a Republican representative could be. Sanford had repeatedly criticized Trump since he took office. Only four Republican House members voted against Trump's interests more often than Sanford.^[8][9] During the campaign, Arrington ran ads criticizing Sanford for being insufficiently supportive of Trump.^[10] Her predecessor in the statehouse, Jenny Horne, had given up her seat to mount an unsuccessful challenge to Sanford in 2016.

During the race, it drew attention that Arrington, who made her pro-Trump views the centerpiece of her campaign, appeared to have been critical of Trump in 2016.^[11] In a March 2016 Facebook post, she praised Mitt Romney on the night that he delivered a rebuke of then-candidate Trump, whom Romney called "a phony, a fraud" and someone who was "playing the American public for suckers".^[12] Arrington also supported Marco Rubio in the 2016 Republican primary for the presidential nomination.^[11]

On the day of the June 12 Republican primary, Trump endorsed Arrington over Sanford, saying she would be "tough on crime," and would "continue our fight for lower taxes."^[13]

In June 2018, Arrington defeated Sanford in the Republican primary, earning 50.5% of the vote to Sanford's 46.5%. Arrington became the second person to defeat an incumbent Republican member of Congress in the 2018 election cycle.^[14]

In November 2018, Arrington was narrowly defeated in the general election by Democratic nominee Joe Cunningham.^[3] While Arrington carried four of the district's five counties, she was defeated in the most populated one, Charleston County, where the majority of the votes were cast.^[15]

Department of Defense

Arrington joined the U.S. Department of Defense in 2019 as a "highly qualified expert" and later competed for and joined the nonpartisan Senior Executive Service. She served as the chief information security officer for acquisition for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.^[5] The Department placed her on leave and suspended her security clearance in 2021 due to allegations of unauthorized disclosure of classified information from a military intelligence agency and misuse of office.^[16][17][18]

2022 U.S. House campaign

On February 8, 2022, Arrington announced that she would again seek the nomination for South Carolina's 1st congressional district, this time against incumbent Nancy Mace.^[19] On February 9, she received the endorsement of former president Donald Trump.^[20] A South Carolina Medal of Honor recipient, Retired Maj. Gen. James Livingston, endorsed Arrington.^[21] Arrington lost the nomination to Mace.^[4]

IonQ CIO

After leaving her role performing the duties of the chief information officer for the Department of Defense last month, Katie Arrington has taken a new position as CIO at quantum computing company IonQ. Arrington will oversee the protection and modernization of IonQ’s global enterprise systems, safeguard digital assets and supply chains, and strengthen operational and cyber resilience across the company’s footprint Shortly before departing government service, Arrington issued a department-wide memorandum directing all components and combatant commands to begin preparing for migration to post-quantum cryptography. The directive cited advances in quantum information science and required defense organizations to inventory cryptographic systems, designate migration leads and plan for the transition away from cryptographic methods vulnerable to future quantum-enabled threats.