Trump Fights GOP Apathy in Deep Red South Carolina

South Carolina Republicans hope President Donald Trump’s Wednesday night visit can tamp down disappointment in the base over the choice of candidate, GOP strategists tell the Daily Signal.

Sen. Darline Graham is up just 2.7 percentage points over Democrat Dr. Annie Andrews in the U.S. Senate race, according to the RealClearPolling average, though Trump won the state in 2024 by 18 percentage points. After the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham earlier this year, his untested sister Darline Graham Nardone was tapped to fill his seat until the term ends in January, but many South Carolina conservatives preferred Rep. Ralph Norman as his successor.

However, Trump threw his weight behind Graham in an August GOP primary runoff for the coming Senate term, rallying for her in both Myrtle Beach and Clemson before she beat Norman to advance to the general election. On Wednesday night, the president will return to Clemson to encourage the base to show up on Nov. 3. The region is important, as nearby Greenville County supplies one in 10 GOP votes statewide.

“He’s looking to bring out the hardcore conservative voters in the upstate that supported Ralph Norman for governor in the primary and supported Ralph Norman in the Senate primary. There’s people that voted for Ralph Norman three times this year. He won Greenville every time,” said John Mace McGrath, GOP strategist and Berkeley County Republican chairman. “He’s trying to make sure those conservatives come home to the Republican Party rather than staying home.”

A movement of Norman supporters has formed to write in his name on the ballot, a move which CJ Westfall, chairman of the Dorchester County Republican Party, thinks Trump is seeking to check.

Norman has said he is not involved with the movement. He has committed to vote for Graham, though he said his adult children will not.

“This race shouldn’t even be close,” he said on local radio Wednesday morning. “And it wouldn’t be if I were in the race.”

“The odds are not very high,” Norman said of the write-in movement. “But I would be guilty of what Donald Trump’s doing is forcing– using my– whatever influence I’ve got to say vote this way or that way. My message is vote for conscience and let the chips fall where they may.”

McGrath thinks there’s “no scenario where Graham loses.”

“If I had a constructive comment to make, it would be they need to do better about presenting the plan that she has for South Carolinians because President Trump trusts her, which means most of South Carolina is going to end up trusting,” he said.

Tyson Grinstead, the South Carolina GOP national committeeman to the Republican National Convention, thinks the Senate race will not be as close as it looks, as Republican gubernatorial candidate Alan Wilson has a 10-point lead over his Democrat opponent Jermaine Johnson.

“Polls were close when Sen. Lindsey Graham ran against Jamie Harrison at this point too, and then he ended up winning by a historic margin,” he said of the 2020 Senate election. “First you’ve got to assume that it’s close, and with the governor’s race being more than 10 points, I’m not sure it’s really that close.”

Grinstead dismissed the write-in movement for Norman as “a lot of noise,” saying that state Republican leaders are “doing best job at pushing that effort down.”

However, Westfall said Wilson is running ahead of Graham because the senator isn’t popular with young voters and independents.

“People from 20 to 50, they’re not happy,” he said. “People 50 and up who love Israel and love foreign intervention and love Benjamin Netanyahu, they don’t care. They think it’s great. But those of us that are against endless wars and those of us that are concerned about the national debt and concerned about principles and policies, we weren’t happy about it.”

“I’m on record as not being happy with her, but after a few weeks of watching the debates, as people are learning more about Annie Andrews, I think people are all coming home,” he said.

The Graham campaign did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment. The Andrews campaign did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment.

While Andrews is now portraying herself as a moderate, her record tells a different story, McGrath said.

“She’s trying to take moderate stances now, but she historically has been very liberal on the transgender boys and girls sports issue,” he said. “She’s 100% pro-choice without exceptions. She says that parents having a say in their kids’ education is ‘bull****.’ She is just way to the left of the mainstream in South Carolina, even amongst Democrats. She is the most liberal candidate they’ve ever nominated, and I think voters are starting to see that and pay attention to her actual record.”

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