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.A crowd filled in scattered bleachers during a rally with President Trump in Rock Hill.Darline Graham didn’t originally plan to run for a full-term seat in the Senate.“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.Annie Andrews snagged an endorsement from Republican David Beasley, a former governor of South Carolina.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.”A neophyte candidateAllies 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.After winning the primary, the soft-spoken Graham took campaign advice from other senators, including South Carolina’s Tim Scott and Republican gubernatorial nominee Alan Wilson. She participated in more debate prep and began talking with more voters on the trail, advisers said.
She became determined to prove her critics wrong.Darline Graham has embraced a go-negative strategy.Graham has stepped up in recent weeks, often crossing the state for many events a day. In the car, she has studied materials about South Carolina issues and Andrews, choosing a go-negative strategy that has defined recent weeks in the race.Many of the speakers at Thursday’s Trump rally barely spoke about Graham, but instead excoriated Andrews and national Democrats.
They attacked Andrews for working for gun control groups in recent years, referenced a comment she once made saying she will “always support trans youth,” and described what they said was the possibility of the country descending into a socialist land with Shariah law. Trump himself repeatedly referred to her as “Trannie Annie.”“I think highlighting her past associations has been eye-opening to voters,” said Rep.
Russell Fry, who represents coastal South Carolina.At the rally, Graham uttered a calculated but rare profanity in a bid to convince people to see Andrews her way. “She’s just plain old batshit crazy,” Graham said.South Carolina’s Republican political apparatus has kicked in to help propel Graham over the finish line, with bus tours, out-of-state visitors, endorsement events and a last-minute flood of advertising. Gov.
Henry McMaster said he had no idea that she would seek six years when he appointed her to fill the seat, but now was determined to help her win.“I didn’t expect her to, but then she did,” he said in an interview.It’s still an open question whether it will be enough. Graham’s primary challenger, Norman, said his entire family refused to vote for her, and a lot of conservatives weren’t interested.
Norman declined to say whether he’d vote for her.“You have to earn the vote. She hasn’t done that,” Norman said. “The campaign has been about trying to prop up a candidate.”Democrats hopeOn a blue-sky Rock Hill evening at a rally for Andrews, supporters said they felt a hope they hadn’t felt in decades.Annie Andrews is a pediatrician.On the campaign trail, Andrews, who lost a bid for Congress in 2022, has attacked her party on securing the border and avoided talking about national Democratic debates.
She has also largely avoided the social and cultural issues Graham has focused on.“That’s what you talk about when you don’t want to talk about the record-high gas and diesel prices and high grocery prices and closing rural hospitals, and the fact that so many South Carolinians will lose their health insurance if the Medicaid budget cuts go through,” she said in an interview.WSJ’s Josh Dawsey breaks down why South Carolina’s Senate race is important to the upcoming midterm election.Andrews said her best argument against Graham was that she was “unfit and unqualified” for the job. Andrews has appeared on Fox News to make the case, and has circulated lists of more than 100 South Carolina Republicans who are backing her, though many of the state’s top Republicans aren’t on it.Democrats in the state said it wasn’t always easy to persuade Republicans to vote for Andrews, even if they were skeptical of Graham. “A lot of Democrats haven’t done themselves any favors,” Vining, the military veteran who opened Andrews’ rally, said.Jenny Desch, a prosecutor running for a state office seat, said she had some luck in persuading people during door knocks to listen to the case for Andrews.
But some were opposed, she said, no matter the argument.After the Andrews rally, two supporters who attended, Lina Hovey and Jennifer Lyons, gathered for dinner and margaritas at a Mexican restaurant nearby. They had been enthused by her performance.
Lyons said she repeatedly called Sen. Lindsey Graham’s office in the past to complain about Trump but was ignored.They said they finally felt hope to flip South Carolina blue, but there were limits to their support.
They declined Andrews bumper stickers for fear of being heckled or vandalized. Hovey said her husband didn’t talk about politics outside the home and they largely avoided telling their neighbors they were Democrats.
She was planning to only put up a sign for Andrews in the final days of the race.“We’ll probably have our hearts broken,” Hovey said. “If this doesn’t happen now, it won’t be in our lifetimes.”The writer returns to his college town of Columbia, S.C., to find out what’s driving voters to the polls. Photo Illustration: Jeff UmWrite to Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.comGet the latest World News, breaking headlines and global updates from the US, UK, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and other countries.
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