ROCK HILL, S.C. — Republicans remain fractured over President Donald Trump’s handpicked Senate candidate five days before the election, with Democrat Annie Andrews surging in polls as Trump returned to the state on Thursday to again make his case for Sen. Darline Graham.
“All the places we’re in trouble in the country, and he’s coming to Rock Hill, South Carolina,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina), who lives in Rock Hill and challenged Graham for the nomination, said in an interview. He called her a “propped-up candidate” and said Trump’s team is trying to “shore her up” in what is usually a safe Republican seat.
The contest between Andrews, a pediatrician, and Graham, a disability advocate and sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, has tightened in its final days. Fox News on Thursday moved the contest to toss-up from lean Republican, a day after a New York Times poll showed it effectively tied — a sharp shift in a state where Graham’s brother won reelection by 10 percentage points in 2020.
Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) said Thursday on MSNOWthat Republicans resent Graham’s candidacy. “They don’t want to vote Democratic, but at the same time they’re concerned about competency and allegiance issues. They don’t like the idea of a puppet, somebody who will do as told by the president,” he said.
Andrews, on the other hand, welcomed Trump’s visit, which plays directly into her campaign message that Graham is a surrogate for the administration with no agenda of her own.
“She has access to him — use it to fight for South Carolina,” Andrews said after a town hall Wednesday at an ice cream shop outside Spartanburg, part of a last-minute barnstorming tour of the state. “She’s unfortunately just using her access to him to prop up her campaign.”
From the rally stage with Trump on Thursday, Graham referred to Andrews as “plain ol’ bat s— crazy” and accused her of spending big money to “rewrite her record” to portray herself as more moderate. “Liberals and socialists” opposing Republicans in South Carolina, Graham said, “can kiss my ass.”
Trump put his weight behind Darline Graham to fill out her brother’s term after Lindsey Graham died in July of a heart ailment. The president endorsed her again to be the GOP nominee for a full term, helping Graham beat Norman in a special Republican primary.
“I got you into this thing, Darline,” Trump said Thursday in Rock Hill, urging the crowd to support her. “And you’re going to go — your brother’s looking down, he’s going to be Tuesday night. Let’s make Lindsey really happy and proud.”
Graham has not campaigned extensively in the state and has stumbled in debate performances, conceding that she’s ill-informed on foreign affairs. With Democrats surging nationwide as the economy falters and Trump sinks in popularity, the seat has turned into a key battleground in the race for control of the Senate.
At an outdoor rally in Rock Hill the night before Trump’s appearance, Andrews drew cheers from several hundred supporters when she said she had just had a beer with Norman, who lives nearby.
Andrews has emphasized her willingness to work across the aisle and earlier this week rolled out an ad with endorsements from two former South Carolina governors — Republican David Beasley and Democrat Jim Hodges.
Norman has openly chafed at Trump’s interference in the nomination process and said that while he would honor a pledge to vote for the GOP nominee, he would not campaign with Graham and urged others to vote their conscience.
Asked about Trump coming to campaign for Graham in Norman’s region of the state — for a second time in just over a week — Norman let out a laugh, and then laughed some more.
“I think it is interesting,” Norman told The Washington Post, composing himself.
Republicans in the state didn’t want to be told to vote for a candidate “that you didn’t know anything about. They knew my record,” said Norman, who has been in Congress since 2017 and was a state House member for nearly 10 years before that.
Over and over in her rallies and town halls, Andrews has portrayed Darline Graham as simply a tool for Trump who does not listen to the people of South Carolina. The Democrat has campaigned in all 46 counties and has dominated advertising, with relentless TV spots and billboards every few miles on I-85.
The message resonated with Elizabeth Sturgis, 72, a retired educator and former supporter of Lindsey Graham who attended the Andrews rally Wednesday night.
“I didn’t vote for him the last couple of elections,” she said. “He changed his tune on things after Trump. I liked that he was a good friend of John McCain, I liked John McCain a lot, but I felt like he turned his back on things after Trump.”
Darline Graham seems like a good person, she said. “But I think she’ll be a rubber stamp for the Trump administration. I don’t think she’ll have an independent voice,” she said. What Sturgis wants more than anything now is “normalcy. Someone that discusses issues intelligently and in a respectful way.”
Brian Scott, 54, of Duncan, works at a company that manufactures components for automobile factories. One of his adult children is nonbinary, and raising the child in a conservative community has caused him to reconsider his politics and even cost him his church.
“I’m just angry about it all because they’re just people,” he said.
He has voted for Lindsey Graham in the past, Scott said, but now is an enthusiastic Andrews supporter. “Republicans have had control long enough,” he said. “It’s time to go.”
The theme was similar for Denise Spreen, 77, who moved to nearby Fort Mill 10 years ago from North Carolina and, despite a long family history of voting Republican, decided she couldn’t support Lindsey Graham.
“He went for Trump and I lost all respect for him,” she said. “Darline — she is so over her head. She doesn’t even show up. Republicans in South Carolina had a couple other names to consider and Trump shoved her down their throats.”
While polling has shown a tight race, it’s not the first time in recent history that a Graham has polled closely with a well-funded Democratic challenger. In 2020, some pre-election polls showed Lindsey Graham within the margin of error with Democrat Jaime Harrison, who had more than $100 million spent on his behalf. Graham ultimately won by 10 percentage points.
This year is “a very, very different race,” Harrison said in an interview. In 2020, enthusiasm for Trump — who was on the ballot — drove huge turnout among Republicans. Now his popularity is at an all-time low. Black voters motivated by concerns over partisan redistricting have come out in record numbers, and many voters are expressing concern about a struggling economy. “Right now all that momentum and enthusiasm are on Annie’s side,” Harrison said. “The stars are aligned.”
Some of Graham’s supporters made it clear Thursday that they were acting out of faith in Trump.
Grady Baker, 33, of Rock Hill, came to Trump’s rally after already having cast his vote early. He considered writing in Ralph Norman, concerned about Darline Graham’s lack of experience. But he ultimately trusted that Graham would keep her constituents’ wishes in mind.
“I figured I might as well vote for her if Trump has already endorsed her,” Baker said.
But Norman said Trump’s heavy hand could backfire. He claimed Trump worked against him in his runoff loss to Graham and had “locked up” the Club for Growth and Turning Point Action from spending on his behalf.
An official with Turning Point Action told The Post that the group endorsed Norman in the Senate primary before Trump backed Darline Graham, but told Norman’s campaign it wouldn’t spend on the race because it didn’t have a presence in South Carolina. Club for Growth did not respond to a request for comment.
Nate Leupp, the former chairman of the Greenville County GOP who now runs the Fourth District Republican Club — a group that hosts frequent events, including one with Graham on Wednesday — said the race is as close as it is because of Trump’s intervention in the primary.
“He will get the full blame should she not win,” Leupp said.
While most of Graham’s Republican detractors are deeply conservative, antiestablishment activists who supported Norman during the primary, Leupp said he learned this week of a former local elected Republican in Greenville, “an establishment to moderate Republican,” who said he would not vote for Graham — but did not like Norman, either, so won’t write him in.
“He just wasn’t going to vote, which blew my mind, because that’s not the normal person that would be in opposition to her,” Leupp said.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), the chairman of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, has had to spend time and resources this fall campaigning in his home state — not a place that he or other GOP officials expected to be a Senate battleground during the midterms.
Scott did not say Thursday when asked whether he believes Graham is tied, as recent polling has shown, instead projecting confidence that Graham will survive one way or another.
“Darline is going to be our — will continue to be our senator,” Scott told The Post.
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