WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. — A month ago, Darline Graham was a private citizen mourning the death of her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. On Tuesday, she will ask South Carolina voters to give her a full, six-year term to the Senate.
Whether they will is anyone’s guess.
The Aug. 11 race for South Carolina’s Senate GOP nomination was a test of President Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, the potency of a household name in a ruby red state — and whether a Trump-endorsed political novice can turn a famous last name and a three-week campaign into a Senate seat.
And it played out in record time. Graham advanced to the Aug. 25 runoff on Tuesday and will face Rep. Ralph Norman in a bid to succeed her brother for a full six-year term.
On her final full day of campaigning before the primary, Graham leaned heavily into her ties to Trump, touting his “complete and total endorsement,” pointing to her sponsorship of his marquee SAVE America Act and backing his strategy amid the Iran war.
On Monday afternoon, Graham appeared alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — two top Trump Cabinet members — for an event commemorating the renaming of a South Carolina air base in memory of her brother. Later in the day, Trump held a telerally for the senator.
“I told Darline, you’ve got to do this and the best one to do this,” Trump said Monday. “She fully supports the Trump agenda and helps us achieve our mission of making America great again. Darline is tough, strong, and the perfect person to carry on Lindsey’s legacy.”
But at the same time, the political newcomer is responding to criticism that she doesn’t have enough experience to serve a full term in the Senate, particularly as she runs against Reps. Russell Fry and Ralph Norman and former Gov. Mark Sanford. Before her appointment to finish out her brother’s term, Graham led South Carolina’s Commission for the Blind. She has never held elected office.
During a campaign stop at the Lizard’s Thicket in West Columbia on Monday, Graham tried to turn her politics-free résumé into a selling point.
“Probably the biggest thing that sets me apart from the other two top candidates is they’re politicians and I’m not,” Graham said. “Sometimes politicians are in there for a while, but then you look at what have they actually done. I think that’s why people want a fresh change, and that’s what I bring. I do have experience that I think will apply to what I’m doing — transferrable skillsets.”
“I bring experience to the table — I’m just not a politician,” she said.
It’s a delicate needle to thread — particularly amid a truncated campaign stretch — but Graham is meeting her critics head-on.
“I know people are attacking me, but do not question that I have conservative values because I do, 100%,” Graham said. “It’s kind of like I’ve been baptized by fire in the Senate. The past three weeks have been drinking from a fire hose. And I really enjoyed it.”
Some voters agreed. Zoe Owen, a 55-year-old South Columbia native who worked at a shoe store in the state, told MS NOW she is thrilled that Trump is backing a candidate “who is outside of the box, not in the political arena.”
“This is a person who never knew she was gonna be in this situation,” Owen said. “She lived among us, she works among us, and now she’s gonna get the opportunity to really be fresh eyes and a fresh voice in a very stale and swampy place.”
“Political experience is like getting in with the good old boys,” Owen said. “She is not a good old boy. She is gonna go in there, she is gonna move and shake things up.”
Whether that message and Trump’s endorsement ultimately resonate is an open question. Graham is betting they will — particularly in a state where Trump remains enormously popular.
Graham mentioned the president’s name numerous times during last week’s debate. She backed his strategy on immigration, insisted gas prices will subside after the war and called on the Senate to stay in session to pass the SAVE America Act — which the president asked for.
On Monday, she predicted that Trump’s endorsement will move votes in her corner.
“I’m very honored to have President Trump’s endorsement,” she said. “I think it means a lot to people here in South Carolina.”
That may be a safer bet in a Republican primary than it would be in a general election, but South Carolina has shown some recent signs that Trump’s endorsement is not always decisive. During the GOP primary for the governor’s race, Trump’s first endorsed candidate — Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette — advanced to the runoff with a nearly three-point lead over state Attorney General Alan Wilson, a surprisingly narrow margin for a Trump-backed candidate.
For the runoff, Trump endorsed both Evette and Wilson, saving himself from a potential loss in a closely watched GOP race. Wilson ultimately beat Evette for the nod by more than 30%, trouncing Trump’s initial pick.
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As she moves closer to Trump, Graham is subtly — yet significantly — inching away from her brother.
On the debate stage last week, Graham said she disagreed with her brother on the legislative filibuster. While he was a stalwart defender of the 60-vote threshold, Graham said she was in favor of nuking the Senate tradition to pass the SAVE America Act.
“I am all for — this is where I differ from my brother — getting rid of the filibuster to get this done because eventually the Democrats are going to get rid of it anyway,” Graham said.
She continued to distinguish herself from the former senator on Monday. During a campaign stop, Graham said she would have a different area of focus from her brother. Where he centered his career on national security and foreign policy, Graham said she would emphasize issues closer to South Carolina voters.
“Obviously I think Lindsey was an amazing senator. His interest was foreign relations and national security, as we know. And while national security is really important, I’m a little different because here I want to, you know, focus on the struggles of South Carolina families, because like them, I feel those same struggles,” Graham said.
It’s a welcome sign for some voters.
Floyd Harper, a 69-year-old West Columbia resident who works in cybersecurity, told MS NOW he arrived at Graham’s event Monday morning undecided on her candidacy and unsure whether the interim senator would continue in her brother’s footsteps in focusing on foreign policy instead of South Carolina.
After the meet-and-greet, he said he was 95% in Graham’s corner.
“Last few years I felt like he drifted from South Carolina concerns, so I was questioning Darline’s stance,” Harper said. “I think she may bring the focus back to this state.”
The conventional wisdom is that Tuesday’s primary will head to a runoff, with the top two vote-getters facing off against one another on Aug. 25. That scenario could be a lifeline for Graham, who has worked to elevate her name ID and national profile while also navigating official Washington for the first time in the span of her three-week candidacy.
It’s a difficult task that even political veterans can acknowledge.
“It’s just hard,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who led the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 2021-2023, told MS NOW of the shortened campaign period.
“It’s quick and it’s a fast race and so it makes it hard,” he said.
For now, Graham is betting that her last name, Trump’s endorsement and her three-week campaign sprint will be enough to carry her across the finish line.
“The past three weeks, I’ve buried my precious brother, I’ve learned a new role in the United States Senate, I’m on this brutal campaign trail with a brutal schedule, and I’m still standing,” Graham said Monday. “So I think that should tell everybody that I’m a hard worker and I’m really strong and I want to help the people of South Carolina.”
Emily Gold
Emily Gold is a coordinating producer for MS NOW.
