The Trump-backed political novice prevailed despite admitting that national security was “not my thing”
Darline Graham has won South Carolina’s Republican Senate primary runoff, putting the political novice in a strong position to secure a full six-year term in the seat held for more than two decades by her famously hawkish late brother, Lindsey Graham.
Graham defeated five-term Congressman Ralph Norman on Tuesday, taking roughly 52% of the vote against his 48%, according to preliminary results. She will face Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, in the November 3 general election. Republicans are heavily favored in South Carolina, which has not elected a Democratic US senator since 1998.
The 62-year-old was appointed to the Senate by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster in July following her brother’s sudden death, which came just hours after the veteran lawmaker returned from a visit to Kiev.
She had never held elected office before, having previously served as commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind and in a communications role at the state Vocational Rehabilitation Department.
What was initially presented as a caretaker appointment quickly turned into a bid for the seat outright after President Donald Trump threw his weight behind Graham and urged her to run. Trump later personally campaigned for her in South Carolina, while his MAGA Inc. super PAC spent nearly $830,000 backing her ahead of the runoff.
Graham had finished first in the initial ten-candidate Republican primary on August 11 with around 33% of the vote, while Norman took roughly 25%, forcing Tuesday’s head-to-head contest because neither secured a majority.
Her victory came despite an awkward debate performance last week that raised questions about her readiness for the Senate. Asked whether Taiwan and the South China Sea constituted national security issues for Washington, Graham struggled to answer before acknowledging that she was “not that informed on national security.”
“National security is not my thing,” she later said, stressing instead that she supported the US military and arguing that South Carolina voters were more concerned with domestic issues.
The admission presented a striking contrast with Lindsey Graham, who made foreign policy one of the defining features of his 23 years in the Senate. He was a vocal supporter of Kiev, pushed sweeping sanctions against Russia and advocated an aggressive US posture toward Iran and other foreign adversaries. At his funeral last month, Trump himself described Graham as “extremely hawkish,” adding that the senator “never saw a war that he didn’t like.”
Darline Graham has nevertheless already inherited at least one of her brother’s signature foreign-policy projects. Shortly after taking his seat, she helped reintroduce legislation originally championed by Lindsey Graham that targets countries purchasing Russian and Iranian energy. The Senate passed the measure earlier this month.
Trump’s endorsement proved decisive in the runoff, overcoming attacks from Norman and his allies, who questioned Graham’s experience and accused her candidacy of amounting to political nepotism.
