“I don’t know much about her. Is she qualified? Honestly, I really couldn’t say.”
That was the assessment from one of the first MAGA supporters in line as President Trump arrived in South Carolina to revive Darline Graham’s struggling Republican Senate campaign.
It was hardly an enthusiastic endorsement. Others in the crowd voiced similar uncertainty after a campaign that has failed to generate much excitement among the party faithful.
The setting added to the symbolism. Trump’s rally took place beside a large cemetery, while Democratic protesters gathered near the headstones and predicted Graham’s political demise. If Republicans lose control of the Senate, South Carolina could be remembered as the place where their hopes were buried.
The lack of enthusiasm for Graham, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, was unmistakable. Even with the President appearing in person for the second time in eight days, the crowd filled less than half of the Rock Hill Sports & Events Center in York County. The arena’s other recent headline event was the Cornhole world championships.
“I liked her brother, so I’m hoping she’ll be a good senator. She’s fairly new,” said Terry Causey, 79, who arrived at 5 a.m. after riding his Harley to the venue. “Trump likes her, so she’s probably going to do a good job.”
Bo Simpson, 69, offered a similar view. “I loved her brother, and I love Darline. I don’t trust the polls. The biggest danger is all the socialists and communists being elected across the country.”
Both men, like many others waiting in line, had crossed over from neighboring North Carolina. They could not vote for Graham and had come primarily to see Trump.
President Trump traveled to South Carolina to support Darline Graham as polls showed a tight Senate race
Lindsey Graham had been on course for a fifth Senate term when he died from an aortic dissection on July 11.
Darline Graham, a former director of South Carolina’s state agency for the blind, won bipartisan backing when she was appointed to complete his term. But her decision to seek a full six-year term on November 3, combined with Trump’s endorsement, has unsettled many Republicans.
Alongside growing economic concerns, the backlash has created an once-unthinkable possibility: deep-red South Carolina could elect a Democrat to the Senate.
Trump carried the state by 18 points in 2024, and South Carolina has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1998. In 2022, Republican Tim Scott won re-election by a commanding 26 points.
The race was already drawing attention when a new poll, released just before Trump’s latest visit, sent shock waves through the contest.
The New York Times/Siena survey showed Graham and Democratic candidate Dr. Annie Andrews tied at 48 percent. Andrews led Graham among independents, 57 percent to 37 percent, while also attracting seven percent of Republican voters and 70 percent of voters under 30.
Democrats appear genuinely energized by Andrews, a pediatrician and mother of three. She has called for the impeachment of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his vaccine views, a reversal of Medicaid cuts and the restoration of Obamacare subsidies.
By October 14, Andrews had raised $23.8 million, compared with just $1.2 million for Graham.
Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Annie Andrews has faced personal attacks from President Trump over her transgender policy views
Whatever the outcome, the contest is already offering Republicans two clear lessons.
The first is that candidate quality matters. The second, perhaps even more significant, is that South Carolinians do not respond well to being told whom they should support.
Nancy Mace, the Republican who defeated Andrews decisively in a 2022 congressional race, summed up the frustration this way: “People feel boondoggled. This was supposed to be a seat where Darline Graham was appointed for six months. It’s a f***ing train wreck.”
At the rally, Randy Heine, 68, said his priority was preventing Democrats from taking control of the Senate and blocking Trump’s agenda. “I’m voting Republican over Democrat just for that reason. For me, it’s about keeping our party in charge.”
“It’s a hard time right now. I work in construction and my men are driving an hour and a half to get to jobs. That means a lot of gas and a lot of expense, but it’s for a good reason.”
He added: “The problem with Iran is very intimidating. They want to kill us.”
Trump made his second trip to deep-red South Carolina in just eight days
Unlike many people in the crowd who had crossed the state line from North Carolina, Graham was campaigning on familiar ground. She describes herself as a “volleyball mom” who has watched her daughter compete at the Rock Hill arena many times.
Speaking in a Southern drawl, she attacked Andrews as “plain bats**t crazy” and a supporter of gun restrictions, while portraying herself as “pretty damn conservative.”
“To me, gun control is how steady you hold your weapon,” Graham said. Her loudest applause came when she told liberals they could “kiss my a**.”
Andrews quickly answered on X: “Is it bats**t to want cheaper gas and groceries?”
Graham faces another obstacle: many Republicans remain loyal to Ralph Norman, the congressman she defeated by five points in the Republican Senate primary after securing Trump’s endorsement.
She won that nomination despite saying during a debate, when asked about Taiwan: “National security is not my thing. I’m not that informed on national security.”
Trump held his rally in Norman’s congressional district, but the representative was not invited and would not have attended anyway. No speaker mentioned him. To many observers, he appeared to have been erased from the state’s Republican leadership by the President.
Norman said in a statement: “This election is about attempts to ‘force’ a candidate on the voters of South Carolina. Regardless of the outcome, it didn’t have to be this way. The great people of South Carolina deserve better. Elections have consequences.”
While Norman has broken with the party establishment, his son Warren has gone further. He has said he is “leaning” toward Andrews and even shared a beer with her.
After Darline Graham called Annie Andrews “bats**t crazy,” Andrews asked whether wanting cheaper gas and groceries was unreasonable
Republicans are trying to regain momentum with two principal attacks on Andrews. The first, and by far the most prominent, focuses on her views about transgender rights.
In 2022, Andrews opposed South Carolina’s Save Women’s Sports Act, which targeted transgender participation in school athletics.
“This is shameful legislation that does nothing to protect or support women or children in South Carolina,” Andrews wrote on X at the time. “In fact, it is actively harmful. I will always support trans youth.”
She has also previously supported gender-affirming care for transgender young people.
At the rally, Trump repeatedly used an anti-trans slur to attack Andrews and at times referred to her simply by the slur.
He also called her a “mutilizer” and a “rabid advocate for taxpayer-funded child sexual mutilation.”
Andrews has responded with a television advertisement filmed in medical scrubs, speaking directly to viewers.
“I want you to hear me loud and clear,” she says. “I don’t support biological men playing women’s sports, and I don’t support — and have never performed — gender surgery for minors.”
Protesters gathered outside the Rock Hill Sports and Events Center as Trump’s motorcade arrived
Republicans are also highlighting financial filings that show Andrews earned more from work with a gun-control organization than she did as a physician.
“She’s a vicious anti-gun radical,” Trump said. “She wants to take your guns!”
He then asked rallygoers who owned firearms to raise their hands. Nearly every person in the audience did so.
Trump’s intervention was intended to rally Republicans, but moments later there were signs it may have motivated some voters in the opposite direction.
At York County’s main polling station, set up inside a Holiday Inn, Brittany Dean, 33, appeared frustrated after watching clips from the rally on social media.
Dean voted for Trump in 2024 and had previously supported Libertarian candidates. This time, she said Trump’s speech prompted her to go directly to the polls and vote Democratic.
“Seriously, you’re calling someone a tranny? That’s not even a nice word. It’s nonsense. That’s what got me out to vote,” she told Our News Outlet.
“When someone resorts to insults and name-calling, you’ve lost me. There’s a level of decorum.”
She was also offended by Trump’s comment at a recent Michigan rally that singer Nicki Minaj had a “beautiful a**.”
“In the workplace, if someone talked about another person’s a** like that, it would be an HR violation,” she said.
“I voted for Trump in 2024, but this term he’s been pretty terrible, including some of what he said during this visit.
“We don’t have to be loyal to political parties. They can’t assume we’ll vote one way simply because we live in the South. Health insurance premiums are soaring, daycare is expensive, groceries cost more and everybody is struggling.”
Anthony Mestas, 52, a services maintenance technician who also supported Andrews, said he would have voted for Norman had he been the Republican nominee.
“The Republican Party tried to force an unqualified candidate on the people of South Carolina. I didn’t vote Republican for that reason,” he said.
“Nominating Lindsey Graham’s sister out of nowhere was not a good choice. I feel there’s a consensus that she was forced on us.”
Jim Ryan, 63, a local business owner and independent voter, said he had supported Graham completing her brother’s term but did not believe she was prepared for the Senate.
“She’s simply not qualified in any sense. She performed terribly in the debate and couldn’t answer basic questions. This is someone who could serve in the US Senate, and that scares me.”
“It seems to be all about loyalty. The economy is out of control, but she supports Trump on everything. How can anyone back him in this crazy war? She’s nothing but a lackey.”
Trump claimed Annie Andrews would seek to take firearms away from Americans
Graham’s supporters emphasize that she never intended to become a politician.
She made the same point during an interview with conservative radio hosts this week, joking: “When I get to heaven one day, I’m just going to choke Lindsey.”
“I think she’s doing a great job. She was pretty much thrown into this, and I support her,” said Graham voter Megan Erickson, 66, a chiropractor. “I don’t think this was her intention. She was asked to do it and stepped up.”
Alan Wilson, South Carolina’s attorney general and a Republican candidate for governor, said: “Do you think for a second she wants to be a US senator? No.
“She would trade it a thousand times over to have her brother back. But she answered the call of our President.”
Election analyst Nate Silver said the poll showing Graham tied with Andrews was “not an outlier,” although he predicted the Democrat would need “basically everything to go right” to win.
One theory circulating among South Carolina political observers is that the race may be experiencing a “polling head-fake.”
In 2020, a series of polls showed Democrat Jaime Harrison running closely against Lindsey Graham. Democrats, sensing an opportunity, poured money into the state. Republicans then rallied to the polls and Graham won by 10 points. Some are wondering whether the same pattern could now be repeating itself on behalf of his sister.
“Some are suggesting this is a ‘polling head-fake,’” said Kevin Bishop, Lindsey Graham’s former communications chief. “I wish.”
