Darline Graham and Ralph Norman head to South Carolina’s Republican Senate runoff on Tuesday, concluding a 45-day campaign sprint that began with the unexpected death of Lindsey Graham in July. The winner will face Annie Andrews, a pediatrician and the Democratic candidate, in a state where Democrats haven’t won statewide in two decades.
A compressed campaign
Reese Boyd, the chair of the Horry county Republican party, marveled on Monday afternoon at how little time the candidates have had to campaign: “This is not the normal way of things.”
“This is something that usually lasts at least, you know, the better part of a year,” he said. “People normally spend the better part of 18 months getting ready for it. Who knows? This may be the right way to do it? Who knows.”
Henry McMaster, the state’s Republican governor, appointed Graham’s sister, Darline, to serve out the remainder of his term. Because Lindsey Graham had won the Republican primary, state law required a fresh election to replace him on the ballot in November.
Graham’s surprise candidacy
Many observers had expected Darline Graham to serve in a caretaker role while South Carolina’s political leadership staged a political knife fight for a rare shot at a US Senate seat. Instead, the political newcomer – a career civil servant who led the state’s commission for the blind – surprised the political establishment and announced her decision to stand for a full term, with the encouragement and backing of Donald Trump.
Graham overcame concerns about her lack of legislative experience earlier this month, claiming the top spot to advance to the 25 August runoff from a sprawling, 10-candidate Republican field.
“I have said many times I’m not a politician, certainly not a career politician. I don’t speak politician,” Graham said recently, referring to a well-publicized gaffe in a debate last week with Norman, where she responded to a question about defense policy by saying that military stuff “is not my thing”.
Norman’s attack and Trump’s endorsement
Norman has pounced on her comment, highlighting it as an example of her unreadiness for the role.
“Imagine if I went to [head football coach] Dabo Swinney at Clemson and any of the coaches and said: ‘Look, I got a prospect I want you to look at, and I want them to,” Norman said to the Associated Press. “‘They can start. I want you to sign them up. They can start for the next six years.’ ‘What’s the qualifications?’ ‘They’re kin to Tom Brady.’ Tell me how that analogy doesn’t work here.”
Lindsey Graham had built a reputation as a foreign policy hawk, who championed the US war against Iran and rallied support for Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion. Darline Graham has framed her candidacy as a way to “carry my brother Lindsey’s legacy”. Since being sworn in as his successor last month, she has voted along party lines, but little else is known about her politics.
Norman, who has been called the most conservative member of the US House, is running billboard advertisements on South Carolina highways that say “Voting for Ralph Norman is MAGA” as an answer to Trump’s endorsement of Graham.
Trump’s influence test
Trump framed his support for Darline Graham as the repayment of a favor to his late friend, Lindsey Graham.
“I asked her to do this,” Trump said on Friday in a campaign stop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. “I said, ‘Darline, you gotta do it.’ ‘Cause everyone loves her, everyone respects her. I’ve known her, through Lindsey … I think Lindsey respected Darline more than any other person he knows, including me. That does not make me happy. I’m not happy about that.”
By elevating a relative political unknown whose primary appeal to voters is her promise to follow the president’s lead, Trump has offered one more high-profile test of his influence over Republican voters before the midterm elections in 10 weeks, a point he made explicit at the rally on Friday.
“The problem that we have is, they say that Trump does great when he’s on the ballot, but when he’s not on the ballot, his people don’t come and they don’t vote for senators, congressmen and other Republicans,” the president said. “And that these people, they’re running, they’re great. But Trump isn’t actually on the ballot. So what I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot. Just come and vote.”
