Six weeks ago, Darline Graham was running a state agency for the blind. Today she is a sitting United States senator who just beat a congressman, another congressman, and a former governor to advance to a Republican primary runoff for a full Senate term. This is the part where you remember that Lindsey Graham died one month ago and the entire state of South Carolina is currently sprinting.
What Actually Just Happened
Senator Lindsey Graham died suddenly on July 11 at age 71. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster moved fast, appointing Lindsey's younger sister, Darline Graham, to serve out the remainder of the term. Graham, 62, spent her career in disability services and was most recently serving as commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind.
Because Lindsey Graham had already secured the Republican nomination in June before his death, the party also needed a new candidate for the general election ballot in November. That meant a compressed special primary, filed between July 21 and 28, with the vote held Tuesday. Ten candidates jumped in. According to CBS News, no one cleared 50 percent, so the top two advance to a runoff on August 25.
Those two are Darline Graham and Representative Ralph Norman. The runoff winner faces Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, in November.
The Field She Just Beat
Let's take a moment to appreciate who Darline Graham, a woman who had been a U.S. senator for roughly three weeks, just outran in a primary.
Representative Russell Fry, a two-term congressman. Representative Ralph Norman, who has served in Congress since 2017. And Mark Sanford, who served as governor of South Carolina and did two separate stints in Congress. As The Guardian reports, all three had polled within one point of each other for second place heading into Tuesday, according to the most recent Trafalgar Group survey.
Fry, for his part, attacked Graham in debate and in ads by amplifying a comment she made about data center development, and had the audacity to compare her Senate appointment to DEI. He was also running simultaneously for his House seat and the Senate seat at the same time, which earned him fire from Graham and others. Sanford went in with a fiscal conservatism pitch about the national debt. Norman came in with a suburban Charlotte congressional district that reliably pumps out Republican primary votes, plus a statewide campaign infrastructure left over from his failed run for governor in June. None of it was enough.
The Trump Factor, Which Is Complicated
Donald Trump endorsed Darline Graham, and Graham has leaned into that endorsement hard. Fox News reports she said on Tuesday that she's running to help "President Trump get his agenda passed." She also has the backing of Governor McMaster and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, which is a tidy little stack of establishment support for someone who keeps presenting herself as an outsider.
But as Fox News points out, Trump's endorsement has not been an automatic golden ticket in South Carolina this cycle. Trump backed Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Evette led the primary, then got destroyed in the runoff against Attorney General Alan Wilson. Trump then endorsed Wilson before the runoff, so he could claim credit either way. The man is nothing if not adaptable.
Norman, Fry, and Sanford also positioned themselves as Trump supporters. When everyone in the race is waving the same flag, the endorsement matters less than the ground game, the money, and the name recognition. Darline Graham has the name in a state where that name has won four Senate terms.
Who Ralph Norman Is, Since He's Now the Main Threat
Norman is a real estate developer who has been in Congress since 2017, representing a suburban Charlotte district that skews heavily Republican in statewide primaries. According to The Guardian, he serves as vice-chair of the House Freedom Caucus, which tells you exactly where he sits on the ideological spectrum.
His campaign platform, as The Guardian notes, has centered on the Save America Act, a Trump-backed bill that would impose federal requirements on states to mandate proof of citizenship at voter registration and submit state voter rolls to federal oversight. He has also promoted legislation to strip housing funding from cities that do not cooperate with ICE. So: hard right on immigration, hard right on voting, and a statewide organization left over from his June gubernatorial run that he is now deploying for this race.
The runoff is August 25. Norman's suburban Charlotte base made him a strong second-place finisher. Whether that translates to a statewide win against an opponent with a famous last name and the sitting president's endorsement is the question.
The Race Darline Graham Is Trying to Define for Herself
Graham is working a line that is genuinely tricky: honoring her brother's legacy while carving out her own identity as a senator. CBS News reports she has indicated she would focus more on domestic issues than the famously hawkish Lindsey Graham, and could stake out more conservative positions on some fronts.
She has also been quick to cite what she's already done. "I was the deciding vote on Todd Blanche as attorney general. So I think I've accomplished a whole lot in three weeks," she told reporters Tuesday after casting her ballot, per The Guardian. She also pointed to a Russia sanctions bill the Senate passed during her short tenure.
Her opponents have hammered her lack of elected office experience, and they are not wrong that she has none. What she does have is a name, a presidential endorsement, a governor's backing, the Senate majority leader's backing, and a personal story that is genuinely difficult to attack without looking like a monster. Lindsey Graham, who never married, adopted his then-13-year-old sister after their parents died in quick succession. She was 22. That is not a political talking point you can counter with an attack ad about data centers.
The Dingo Take
You are supposed to look at this race and see a heartwarming story about a grieving sister stepping up to honor her brother's legacy, and that story is real. But do not let it obscure what is also true: South Carolina Republicans are, in a matter of weeks, going to nominate someone for a six-year Senate term, and the field they are choosing from includes a Freedom Caucus vice-chair who wants to defund cities that don't cooperate with ICE and an appointed senator whose entire qualification package is three weeks on the job, a famous last name, and a Trump tweet. Those are the options. That is the menu.
The Democrat in this race, Annie Andrews, is a pediatrician. She will almost certainly lose in November in a state Trump carried by 58 percent in 2024, and where Lindsey Graham won his last race with 54 percent. South Carolina is not going to elect a Democrat to the Senate right now. That is just the math. But the fact that the race is framed as Republicans fighting over who gets to cruise into office, while a pediatrician waits in November to be told no thank you, says something about where we are.
Darline Graham might be a perfectly fine senator. She ran a state agency, turned it around by her own telling, and has shown some instinct for the job in three weeks under genuinely awful personal circumstances. Ralph Norman might win the runoff and make the Freedom Caucus marginally more powerful in the upper chamber. One of those outcomes is clearly worse than the other. South Carolina Republicans have until August 25 to decide which one they want.
Comments