Darline Graham and Ralph Norman compete to replace Lindsey Graham in Senate runoff

South Carolina Republicans will decide Tuesday who will replace Sen. Lindsey Graham on the ballot in November’s midterm election, after a rushed campaign in the wake of his sudden death in July.

Graham’s sister, Sen. Darline Graham, faced Rep. Ralph Norman in Tuesday’s runoff election, with polls closing at 7 p.m. local time. The two candidates were the top two vote-getters in the special primary election on Aug. 11. Darline Graham was appointed to serve out the remainder of her late brother’s term, which ends early next year. Lindsey Graham had been running for his fifth term when he died and had just won the Republican primary in June.

Darline Graham, who has no prior experience in elected office, has focused on domestic issues during the abbreviated campaign, which has drawn support from President Trump. Going into Tuesday’s runoff, her lack of preparedness in foreign policy has raised some questions about her candidacy for the full term.

In a debate last week, she stumbled on a question about Taiwan and the South China Sea. Graham said she’s “not that informed on national security,” unlike her late brother, an outspoken foreign policy hawk.

“I’m not a polished politician,” Graham said. “National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military.”

Asked at a news conference whether she’d taken a closer look at the issue of Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific since the debate, she told reporters she had traveled around the state to talk with as many voters as she could. 

“You know how many of them brought up Taiwan or national security? Not one,” she said, adding that they were talking about “the rising cost of health care and affordability, so that’s what’s important to me.”

But when WTX US News’ Ed O’Keefe later asked Graham whether she planned to bring up a specific proposal or legislation on those issues, she offered no plan, responding that we’ll deal with that “when I get there.” Graham, however is already in the Senate and has been serving for about six weeks.

The winner of Tuesday’s runoff will take on Dr. Annie Andrews, who won the Democratic primary in June. Although the South Carolina Senate race is usually a fundraising boon to Democrats, the state remains solidly Republican and has just one Democratic representative in Congress. 

Mr. Trump, who had been close to Lindsey Graham, has thrown his support behind Darline Graham. He campaigned for her in South Carolina last week and held a tele-rally for her on Monday. And the Trump super PAC MAGA Inc surged $827,000 into her campaign for text messages and phone calls on her behalf, according to Federal Election Commission records. Until Darline Graham’s Senate bid, MAGA Inc had spent only about $18,000 in 2026 on a midterm race. The super PAC spent about $1.7 million last year and by the end of the second quarter, it had raised $401 million.

Darline Graham has also garnered the support of South Carolina’s other senator, GOP Sen. Tim Scott, who said after her first few weeks in the Senate and her first-place finish in the primary that he’s “confident she’s the real deal.”

The newly minted senator has billed herself as “a problem solver, a critical thinker, and a leader,” with decades of experience working for South Carolina. Darline Graham, 62, most recently served as commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind. Graham had a close relationship with her brother, who never married or had children. 

She’s cited their upbringing, where she and her brother observed their parents working long hours at their bar and liquor store in central South Carolina, for their shared work ethic. 

And as she’s pledged to carry out her brother’s legacy, she’s also emphasized that she would chart her own path in the Senate, which could be more conservative than her brother’s. During last week’s debate, she quickly made her views on transgender athletes in sports, abortion and gun rights known.

Meanwhile, Norman, who has represented South Carolina in the House since 2017, has presented himself as an experienced legislator with a track record as a conservative fighter, while calling Graham an “unknown candidate.” 

The real estate developer and longtime member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus was one of a handful of Republicans to jump into the special primary race despite the president’s endorsement of Darline Graham. And for Norman, who was one of only two House Republicans to back former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in her bid to challenge Mr. Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024, it wasn’t the first time he’s been willing to break with the president. 

Norman, 73, has the backing of Haley, who also served as ambassador to the U.N. during the first Trump administration, and called out Darline Graham’s lack of experience after her debate performance.

“Lindsey Graham was well informed on the United States’ national security. Darline Graham admits she’s not,” Haley said on X. “This is not something you inherit. And it’s critical in the U.S. Senate.”