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Get you up to speed: Results roll in as Darline Graham, Ralph Norman face off to replace Sen. Lindsey Graham on South Carolina Senate ballot
South Carolina Republicans are holding a runoff election to select a candidate to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham on the November ballot, with Darline Graham and Rep. Ralph Norman competing. Polls closed at 7 p.m. local time, and the immediate outcome is pending.
Polls in South Carolina closed at 7 p.m. local time, with the winner of the runoff set to face Dr. Annie Andrews in the November midterm election. Darline Graham, recently appointed to fill her late brother’s Senate seat, is emphasising domestic issues during her campaign, while questions about her lack of foreign policy experience have emerged.
South Carolina Republicans will determine the candidate to replace Lindsey Graham after a runoff election between Darline Graham and Ralph Norman, with polls closing at 7 p.m. local time. President Trump has actively supported Darline Graham, and the victor will face Dr. Annie Andrews, the Democratic primary winner, in the upcoming midterm election.
What remains unclear — It is unknown which specific policies or legislative proposals Darline Graham intends to pursue regarding national security issues.
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.”
Ed O’Keefe
contributed to this report.
In:
Get you up to speed: Hundreds pull giant castle for repairs in epic tug-of-war | News World
Approximately 1,800 volunteers moved the 360-tonne Hirosaki Castle in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, as part of a refurbishment project. The castle was relocated using a traditional technique known as hikiya, with the project set to continue for another week.
The moving process for Hirosaki Castle is expected to take another week, employing approximately 4,100 volunteers in total to shift the structure by 16 feet. Following the relocation, refurbishment efforts will persist, with the castle projected to remain closed to visitors until 2033.
Kensuke Hayasaka, head of the parks and green spaces division with Hirosaki City, stated that the initiative received approximately 8,000 applications for the 1,800 available slots, indicating significant public interest. The castle’s refurbishment is anticipated to extend beyond the current relocation efforts, with reopening not expected until 2033.
What remains unclear — It is not specified when the entire refurbishment of Hirosaki Castle will be completed after the castle has been moved.
Thousands participate in tug-of-war to move Hirosaki Castle for repairs
If you have ever wondered what a game of human vs castle would look like, look no further.
Almost 2,000 strong-armed volunteers proved in northern Japan that with enough people, anything will move, even a 360-tonne castle.
They had enlisted to drag the giant structure by hand, with the historic Hirosaki Castle known for its cherry blossom garden propped on rollers and tied to ropes.
The astonishing show of strength, determination and organisation was on display in the Aomori prefecture on Saturday, where the castle needed moving to its original spot as part of a refurbishment.

The towering castle was moved with sheer human strength, with a little bit of help from a traditional technique known as hikiya (Picture: Kyodo/Newscom / Newscom / Avalon)
The castle, made up of a fortified tower inside it, had to be moved little more than six feet as part of the works, which have been ongoing since an earthquake wreaked havoc in 2015.
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In total, 1,800 people were needed for the job, but around 8,000 people had put their name forward and applied for the game of tug-of-war.
Organised in groups of 80 people, the participants, equipped with gloves, latched onto the 98 ft ropes to pull the building for the first three feet and seven inches.
Then on Sunday, the participants moved it another 42 inches while chants of ‘so-re, so-re’ (go on in English) rang through the air to set the pace.

Hiroki Castle has been undergoing renovations since the 2015 earthquake damage (Picture: X/@hirosaki_promo)
Kensuke Hayasaka, the head of the parks and green spaces division with Hirosaki City, told the Guardian: ‘We had about 8,000 applications for the 1,800 slots over the last two days, roughly four times oversubscribed, so not everyone could participate.’
The options for the castle were either dismantling or moving it using the traditional technique called hikiya.
It has been used in Japan for at least 400 years to move entire buildings and is most common in road-widening projects.
The technique is back in the spotlight after being used to preserve heritage sites.
And after a public call-out by the city council in 2015, the Hirosaki Castle project became the first time in a century a citizen-powered hikiya has been used to move a building.
Some fans had travelled from far and wide to take part in the 2026 hikiya.
Motoharu Nakata, 61, had taken part in the first tug-of-war and had travelled to the site again.
He told the Sankei Shimbun outlet: ‘I pulled it 11 years ago too. It’s very moving to be able to participate again. There’s absolutely no other opportunity to pull a castle, it was fantastic.’
The mammoth project will continue for another week with the help of around 4,100 people in total, who will pull the castle for 16 feet.
However, the refurbishment will continue even after the castle is firmly on its original spot.
It is not expected to reopen to visitors until 2033.
The iconic castle was built by the Tsugaru samurai family in 1611, but it burned down in 1627 after a gunpowder accident.
The current structure was erected in 1810.
Hirosaki city at the foot of Mount Iwaki is one of Japan’s top spots for seeing the cherry blossoms or sakura, which pop up between March and April.
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