Sen. Darline Graham Nordone‘s (R-SC) political future may rest with President Donald Trump’s endorsement after the senator stumbled during a special primary runoff debate against Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), intensifying questions about whether she is prepared for the job.
Graham Nordone, who was appointed to replace her brother Lindsey after his death in July, told debate moderators on Tuesday that she is “not that informed on national security” when she was asked if Taiwan and the South China Sea are national security issues for the United States.
Three days later, on Friday, Trump campaigned with her in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Trump’s endorsement track record remains strong, but at least 10 Trump-endorsed candidates have lost their contests so far this election cycle after two endorsed candidates in Florida and another in Wyoming lost their primaries earlier this week.
It faces another test Tuesday, and South Carolina Republican strategist Dave Wilson said Trump is coming to South Carolina to “seal the deal” for Graham Nordone and “it will be a real test as to whether or not he can do that.”
“This is a test of Donald Trump’s endorsement strength because he diluted it in South Carolina by endorsing Alan Wilson when it was Alan and [Pamela Evette] in the runoff [election for governor], but he has now staked his ground,” Dave Wilson told the Washington Examiner. “He staked his ground before [Graham Nordone] even announced.”
Wilson underscored how Trump’s endorsement is “going to carry a lot of weight” for Graham Nordone, in addition to public support from Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC), whose district was the backdrop to Friday’s rally, considering she is relatively unknown and made mistakes during the debate.
“When you take a look at the way the state’s numbers broke down, Ralph Norman is really concentrating a lot of his efforts in areas of the state that are more conservative in the traditional sense, the Upstate and the Midlands,” he said. “Though she did win quite handily in the Midlands of South Carolina, picking up Russell Fry’s endorsement could be the thing that carries her over the edge, in conjunction with Donald Trump’s endorsement.”
Gov. Henry McMaster, who appointed Graham Nordone to the Senate, also endorsed her on Friday evening.
Another Republican strategist, who was granted anonymity, argued that Trump’s endorsement would help Graham Nordone “some,” but her “real boost” would be from “the millions of super PAC dollars that have shown up for her during the runoff [election].”
That includes $1.5 million from the Security is Strength PAC and $1.26 million from Palmetto Action, both of which supported her brother, supplementing money from Invest in Tomorrow Coalition, a clean energy group spending $1 million against Norman.
That strategist downplayed the political consequences of Graham Nordone’s debate, adding that “it didn’t help Darline, but happened late enough in the race that not everyone is going to see it before heading to the polls Tuesday.”
At the same time, the source conceded that Graham Nordone’s “the gaffe confirmed [voters’] greatest fear about her candidacy.”
During the debate, Graham Nordone, a former vocational rehabilitation advocate before she was appointed to the Senate, also misspoke when asked about the population of South Carolina, saying it was 50 million people and not 5.5 million. She misrepresented, too some of Norman’s policy positions, including that he did not vote for Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act when he did on final passage.
Norman is trying to use Graham Nordone’s lack of experience against her, but she is simultaneously attempting to use his record against him, claiming, for example, that he has only renamed post offices during his five terms in Congress.
Wilson, the Republican strategist, repeated that Graham Nordone should have been better prepared for the debate, but contended that South Carolina voters “continuously looked for people who can bring consensus together to make sure that [the state] is taken care of.”
“It’s going to take a lot of lift from Ralph Norman to say that somebody who has been a bit of a … somebody who has been focused on fighting against the system, is actually going to fix the system,” he said. “Ralph Norman has taken more of a hardline stance, that kind of Freedom Caucus stance, versus what are we going to do to find the ways to find common ground somewhere in the middle? Which was the big criticism that hard right Republicans had of Lindsey Graham … that he would always float back to the middle.”
But, Wilson continued, “I don’t think the heart of the core Republican primary voter is 100% hardline.”
South Carolina Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright agreed more generally with the two Republican strategists that Trump’s endorsement will likely “save” Graham Nordone from “further embarrassment” because “it will still bring about a certain sense of loyalty” from “a certain segment of the modern day” GOP.
“If she can split or eat into [Norman’s] coalition outside of Myrtle Beach or Orange County, I think that’s going to determine whether or not she’s successful and, demographically, what type of conservative shows up,” Seawright told the Washington Examiner.
Former South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) thinks the Graham Nordone’s gaffe may not matter in the end and that it’ll come down to what’s on the mind of voters.
“The question is ‘What’s on the minds of the voters?’” Inglis told the Washington Examiner. “The war in Iran is unpopular. Voters just want it to stop. They want the price of gasoline to go down. It doesn’t take a whole lot of expertise on that.”