Even as Trump’s Standing Slips, He Slingshots Darline Graham to Victory
New York Times · LC · trust 40/100
After facing low approval ratings and endorsement setbacks, the president made a show of force in lifting Darline Graham to the Republican nomination for Senate in South Carolina.
Listen · 7:07 min Share full article 22 President Trump hosted a rally on Friday in Myrtle Beach, S.C., for Senator Darline Graham, part of a full-court press on her behalf. Credit... Alex Kent/The New York Times By Emily Davies and Tim Balk
Emily Davies reported from Columbia, S.C.
His choice for Senate in South Carolina, Darline Graham, had admitted at a debate that she wasn’t “that informed on national security.” Mr. Trump’s so-far-stingy super PAC was forced to spend more than $800,000 to help her. Many South Carolina Republicans expected her to lose, in what would have been the president’s first defeat in a Senate primary all year.
Instead, as Mr. Trump has done often since his rise to power a decade ago, he defied electoral expectations.
Ms. Graham’s narrow primary runoff victory on Tuesday night in the race to succeed her brother, the late Senator Lindsey Graham, was a show of force by a president who invested significant political and financial capital to assist her quest. His efforts ensured that Ms. Graham, who had no political experience to speak of and was little known before her brother’s death last month, will now be favored to serve in the Senate through at least 2032.
The outcome in South Carolina, one of the final major primaries before the midterm elections in November, offered a reminder of Mr. Trump’s influence over the Republican base, months after a spring retribution tour where he drove a series of G.O.P. opponents out of Congress. And Ms. Graham’s win came as another Trump-endorsed candidate, Mike Mazzei, prevailed in a hotly contested Republican primary runoff for governor of Oklahoma.
Some of the luster had seemed to come off Mr. Trump’s political brand in recent weeks. His approval ratings have drooped, his party’s midterm outlook has darkened and his chosen picks in several races for governor and the House have fallen short.
While Ms. Graham emerged triumphant in South Carolina on Tuesday, it came at a cost. As Mr. Trump and his party struggle to defend Republican congressional majorities, he expended time and energy in a race for a solidly red seat expected to have no bearing on control of Congress.
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