Darline Graham's Chances of Losing GOP Primary for Brother's Senate Seat
Newsweek · C · trust 42/100
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. South Carolina Republicans vote Tuesday in a special primary to decide who will carry the party's banner in November for the U.S. Senate seat held for 23 years by the late Lindsey Graham . Heading into Election Day , the race remains genuinely unsettled.
Interim Senator Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham's sister, has opened a sizable lead in some polls while holding only a narrow edge in others. Representative Ralph Norman has led at least one recent survey outright.
With nine candidates on the ballot and no clear front-runner, a runoff on August 25 remains a real possibility under South Carolina law, which requires a candidate to win a majority to avoid one.
Newsweek reached out to Graham, Norman and Fry's campaigns on Monday morning for comment.
Darline Graham, 62, was largely unknown in South Carolina politics before Republican Governor Henry McMaster appointed her last month to fill her brother's seat following his sudden death on July 11 from a torn aorta. She had spent years alongside Lindsey Graham throughout his political career but had never held or sought elected office herself.
She has presented her campaign less as a personal political ambition than as a response to President Donald Trump's call to serve. At her first campaign appearance in Lexington, she told the crowd she had never imagined herself entering politics.
"I've never had any desire to be a politician," she said, adding that she was running to advance Trump's agenda.
Trump endorsed Graham on July 17, just days after her appointment, and has continued to publicly back her. He has said he personally asked her to run for the seat.
"There would be nobody better to honor the legacy of her beloved brother, Lindsey," Trump said.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee has also endorsed Graham and is running television ads on her behalf.
At a Monday debate, Graham again emphasized her alignment with the president. She said she supports Trump on the border and would back ending the Senate filibuster if necessary to pass the SAVE America Act. She also called for greater transparency in health care pricing, arguing that rising costs are putting South Carolina families under severe financial strain.
The polling has offered no clear answer.
Norman, a five-term member of the U.S. House representing South Carolina's Fifth District, has campaigned as an experienced conservative with a long voting record in Washington. Representative Russell Fry, also a Republican, has positioned himself as a contender capable of forcing a runoff, while former South Carolina Governor and Representative Mark Sanford is relying in part on the statewide name recognition he built over decades in politics.
Other candidates, including businessman Bill Lynch, have remained in the single digits in most public polling.
The newest survey, released August 9 by Quantus Insights, showed Graham with a wider lead. Among 636 likely voters surveyed August 5 and 6, she received 33 percent support, compared with 20 percent each for Norman and Fry and 17 percent for Sanford. Quantus does not meet the criteria used by some polling trackers to designate select, or higher-quality, pollsters.
A co/efficient poll conducted July 28 to 30 among 857 likely voters found a different order, with Graham leading at 30 percent, followed by Fry at 16 percent and Norman at 15 percent. In hypothetical runoff matchups, Graham led Norman 40 percent to 35 percent, while Fry led Graham 40 percent to 31 percent.
An Emerson College Polling survey conducted for Nexstar Media on July 28 and 29 found Norman leading with 22 percent support among likely Republican primary voters, followed by Graham at 19 percent, Fry at 12 percent and Sanford at 11 percent. About a quarter of voters were undecided.
A tracker version of the same Emerson data that reallocated undecided voters showed a much tighter race, with Norman at 25 percent, Graham at 23 percent, Fry at 17 percent and Sanford at 16 percent.
Related Story Darline Graham To Run For Senate–What Are Her Political Views? Taken together, the surveys put Graham and Norman at the top, with Fry still close enough to contend for a runoff spot. Sanford, meanwhile, has yet to turn his statewide name recognition into a clear position among the top two.
Prediction markets have been more confident in Graham than the public polling.
On Kalshi, Graham was trading at 48 cents as of August 7, implying a roughly 48 percent chance of winning the nomination. Norman and Fry were tied at 25 cents each. On Polymarket, where more than $844,000 had been traded on the primary winner market as of August 8, Graham had a 46 percent implied probability, followed by Fry at 26 percent.
Much of the race has focused on whether Graham's family name and Trump's endorsement can make up for her lack of political experience against better-known candidates.
Unlike her brother, Darline Graham spent years out of the political spotlight, working in South Carolina state government and raising her family in Lexington. Since becoming interim senator, she has spent much of her time in Washington rather than campaigning.
Graham has defended that decision. “I feel like my job is to be in D.C. working for everyone right now,” she told reporters on Saturday. “I hate that I can't be here. I want to be here.”
She has appeared at two candidate forums and one televised debate, where she backed Trump's push to change filibuster rules to pass stricter voting legislation. She has otherwise kept a low media profile, speaking mainly with Fox News personalities and local outlets.
Whoever wins the Republican nomination will be heavily favored in November. South Carolina has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1998, and Trump carried the state by 18 points in 2024.
Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, a…
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