President Trump on Friday endorsed Darline Graham Nordone for a full six-year Senate term — a woman who held no elected office until South Carolina's governor appointed her to her late brother's seat just days ago, and who now has the full weight of the Oval Office behind her before a single primary voter casts a ballot.
The Senate isn't a family heirloom. It belongs to the people of South Carolina. But the machinery is moving fast to make sure it stays in the Graham family before any outsider can mount a challenge.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that he asked Nordone, during a White House visit, to run in the August 11 special Republican primary. "I hope Darline does this, in that there would be nobody better to honor the legacy of her beloved brother, Lindsey," he wrote. "RUN, DARLINE, RUN!" Trump added that she has his "Complete and Total Endorsement."
Nordone, 62, was sworn in Tuesday after Gov. Henry McMaster appointed her to fill the remainder of Lindsey Graham's term, which expires in January. She had served as a commissioner on the South Carolina Commission for the Blind since 2019 and held bureaucratic roles at state agencies and Clemson University for nearly three decades. She has never won an election.
The New York Post noted that Trump's endorsement "would likely ensure her victory in the Republican primary." That's the whole point — clear the field before it forms.
The appointment already raised eyebrows. The Anchorage Daily News reported that a person familiar with McMaster's thinking said the governor "had never contemplated" that Nordone would run for the seat herself when he appointed her. If true, that contemplation didn't last long. Four people familiar with her deliberations told the Anchorage Daily News she had privately expressed interest in running.
Before Trump backed Nordone, he had suggested he might support Rep. Russell Fry. Now Fry, Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Ralph Norman, and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette — all of whom were eyeing the race — face a president-endorsed candidate with name ID and the sympathy vote before filing even opens on July 21.
Sen. Tim Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he wouldn't endorse in the primary. But as "Tim Scott, the voter of South Carolina," he told reporters: "Why not her?" — a curious standard for a body that's supposed to answer to the public, not to family loyalty.
Nordone has pledged to carry forward her brother's legislative priorities and support Trump's agenda. Lindsey Graham, who died July 12 at 71 from an aortic dissection, was a foreign policy hawk and one of Trump's closest Senate allies — after spending his own 2016 presidential campaign attacking the man he later served. He had millions in his campaign account and had already won his June primary for a fifth term.
The Democratic nominee in November is Annie Andrews. In deep-red South Carolina, the Republican primary is the election.
The question for South Carolina voters is simple: does a Senate seat pass by bloodline, or does it belong to whoever earns it?
