Darline Graham Advances to the Republican Senate Runoff in South Carolina

Senator Darline Graham, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, advanced on Tuesday to the special Republican primary runoff for Senate in South Carolina, when she will face Representative Ralph Norman, a longtime hard-line conservative lawmaker, according to The Associated Press.

The matchup on Aug. 25 will offer a sharp contrast in experience, though few policy differences. Ms. Graham, who stepped in to complete her brother’s Senate term after he died last month, has offered little in the way of specifics about her positions, other than to back President Trump and the Republican Party line. Mr. Norman is a five-term congressman and vice-chairman of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus.

Ms. Graham did not win the special primary outright, despite having Mr. Trump’s endorsement — an outcome, as she said on Tuesday morning, that she expected in the crowded race. Mr. Norman and other more experienced Republicans ran knowing that Ms. Graham, 62, a longtime advocate for people with disabilities, had been largely unknown and untested as a political novice. As of Tuesday, she had been in office for 28 days.

“This is a very emotional night,” Ms. Graham told reporters gathered in Columbia, S.C., on Tuesday night, “because I’m usually standing out here celebrating with Lindsey. I know he’s looking down right now, smiling.”

She rejected criticism that she had effectively inherited the Senate seat, saying that her parents taught her and her brother “that you’re not given anything in life.”

“If you want something, you work for it,” she said, vowing to listen to Republicans on the ground over the next two weeks. “That’s how I’ve tried to live my life.”

She said she had thanked Mr. Trump and was “hopeful” that he would campaign for her, “but we’ll see.” Her family stood behind her in the small recording studio where she made her remarks, without any supporters on hand.

Mr. Norman made the runoff after running neck and neck with Representative Russell Fry, an up-and-coming young lawmaker aligned with Mr. Trump, as results trickled in Tuesday night. Mr. Fry, 41, a two-term congressman from the Myrtle Beach area, did well in South Carolina’s growing northeast. But Mr. Norman attracted strong support around the South Carolina suburbs of Charlotte, N.C., where he is from, and in the upstate region around Greenville, which is rich in Republican voters.

“We have got some socialist Democrats,” Mr. Norman told a gathering of about a hundred people on Tuesday night at a restaurant in Rock Hill, N.C. “This is the party that is intent on taking over this country.”

Mr. Norman said he might not have been the first or second choice of some voters but said he wanted to be their “next choice.” He pledged to run over the next two weeks on a message of faith, family and freedom.

“Let’s win this thing!” he told supporters.

For Mr. Norman, 73, the race revived a political career that had appeared to be drawing to a close after he gave up his House seat and came in third in the Republican primary for governor in June. He was perhaps better prepared than any other South Carolina Republican to run an unexpected Senate race on very short notice after Mr. Graham’s death, having just competed in a statewide contest that had given him strong name recognition.

Mr. Norman did not win Mr. Trump’s endorsement in either the governor’s race or the special Senate race, likely because he backed former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina over Mr. Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But Mr. Trump’s endorsement in this year’s race for governor did not prove decisive: His first choice, Pamela Evette, the state’s lieutenant governor, made the runoff but then lost. She had faced criticism for relying so heavily on the president’s support that she appeared to campaign on little else.

South Carolina is a solidly red state, but its Republican voters have a long history of rejecting legacy candidates and bucking the party establishment. In Ms. Graham’s case, she has had to contend with her brother’s sometimes difficult relationship with the state’s MAGA voters. They viewed Mr. Graham with some skepticism over his hawkish foreign policy views, his past support for comprehensive immigration reform and his failure to initially back Mr. Trump, though the two men eventually became close.

Ms. Graham has tried to distance herself from some of her brother’s views, saying that she would focus on domestic policy. But she has carefully avoided interviews with reporters and spent much of the past few weeks in Washington voting in the Senate rather than introducing herself to voters.

Mr. Trump held a telephone rally for Ms. Graham ahead of the election on Monday night, saying she stepped up “with tremendous poise and conviction” after her older brother’s death.

“She looks so nice, but she’s actually tough and strong,” he said on the call.

Tiffany Tan contributed reporting from Rock Hill, S.C.