Inside the Final Days of Darline Graham’s Reluctant Senate Run

ROCK HILL, S.C.—Darline Graham had just been sworn in to finish her late brother’s Senate term this summer when she was in the Oval Office trying to coax President Trump to support Lindsey Graham’s Russia sanctions bill.

Darline GrahamTrump was reluctant, but her brother had been obsessed with the bill, Graham said in an interview. Graham told the president that he could blame a grieving sister for any fallout. Trump chuckled and told her, “You’re tough.” It was then that Trump asked her to run for the full six-year term, she said, something she said she hadn’t previously considered.

Trump later halted most of the sanctions, leaving Graham privately disappointed. Her fate in South Carolina was now tied to the president’s. Public and internal polls show Graham tied with, or trailing, her Democratic rival, Dr.

Annie Andrews, making the Palmetto State competitive in a way it hasn’t been for decades. In the first two weeks of October, Graham raised less than $600,000, while Andrews, a pediatrician and gun safety advocate, raised $4.5 million.

Andrews has also picked up endorsements from some of the state’s prominent Republicans, including former Gov. David Beasley. On Thursday, Trump traveled to this town about 30 miles south of Charlotte, N.C., to rally support for Graham.

Several thousand showed up, but part of the large arena was blocked off, leaving much of it empty. “It’s just been absolutely brutal,” Graham said in an interview, referencing how she lost her brother and has competed in three different elections in a span of months, including a primary, a runoff and now the general election.

“Campaigns are bad enough as they stand, but with all of that, it’s just been bad, times 10,” she said. Trump won South Carolina in 2024 by double-digits, and the reliably red state hasn’t voted for a Democrat statewide in two decades.

Even though Trump’s approval has dropped in the state, with frustrations growing over gas prices and the Iran war, some consultants say Graham is still likely to eke out a tight victory buoyed by straight-ticket voters. Across town the night before the Trump rally, around 400 people came out to support Andrews.

One of them, Paul Vining, a retired veteran, said he had voted for Trump three times but was disillusioned with the second Trump term and with Graham, who he said looked like a “hostage” on the campaign trail. At the rally, Andrews avoided Trump’s name even as she excoriated his policies on tariffs, the Iran war, and corruption.

“We don’t talk about him really,” Andrews said in an interview, after obliquely talking about Trump on stage for minutes. Privately, some Senate Republican campaign strategists and Trump advisers have grown alarmed about Graham’s race.

Several said they believed they could have found a better candidate, but the president wanted Graham. The idea for the Thursday rally was the president’s idea, a person close to the president said. “The reason he’s here is she’s lagging in the polls.

He’s doing it because she is in trouble,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, who lost to Graham in the primary after another Trump appearance in Myrtle Beach pushed Graham over that finish line. “He could be in other states like Ohio or Texas that are in trouble, but he’s in Rock Hill, South Carolina.” Allies say Graham, who led a state agency, has been jolted by her short time as a neophyte candidate and isn’t always enjoying the race, but is determined to see it through for her brother.

After an early misstep, in which she responded to a debate question about Taiwan by saying that “national security is not my thing,” she was dejected for days, people who spoke to her said. She tried to recover, saying: “I do support the military.” Those who know Graham said she never wanted to be a public figure.

Darline Graham would sometimes attend her brother’s events, but usually didn’t speak publicly, South Carolina politicos said. The two were close, but she liked to stay behind the scenes, they said. On the campaign trail, Graham has skipped events that her brother attended, and South Carolina political veterans said they barely know her and that voters don’t either.

Graham said that after taking office, much of her time in Washington was spent being a senator, giving her little time to introduce herself. She has struggled to raise money, a problem donors attributed in part to her inexperience and in part because the donors are tapped out from so many consecutive races.

Andrews has used her funding advantage to blanket the airwaves with ads depicting Graham as a corrupt Washington insider and “Data Center Darline.” “Even though we’re a solid red state, it’s almost like she had an advantage,” Graham said.