Senator Lindsey Graham may have just scored a glowing endorsement from President Donald Trump, but he faces a daunting challenge to retain the seat he has held since 2003.
“Happy Birthday to Senator Lindsey Graham!” the president posted on Truth Social on Wednesday, accompanying a picture of the two men beaming and posing for a thumbs-up on the golf course.
“He is always there when I need him, and I hope everyone in the Great State of South Carolina will help Lindsey have a BIG WIN in his re-election bid next year. ”
Graham, 70, is running for a fifth six-year term when next year’s midterms roll around on November 3, 2026, one of 33 senators fighting to hold on to their seat.
Twenty of that total are Republicans, meaning Democrats have a golden opportunity to flip the upper chamber of Congress from its current 53-47 GOP majority if they can cause sufficient upsets.
The president’s endorsement is likely to carry considerable weight in South Carolina, given that he secured 58.23 percent of the vote in last year’s election and, before that, trounced former state governor Nikki Haley in the state's Republican primary.
Trump has also sent his own former campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, to advise Graham's re-election campaign, with the former congressman currently polling poorly in his home state.
Graham registered an approval rating of just 34 percent in a Winthrop University poll conducted in May, leaving him trailing behind Governor Henry McMaster (42 percent) and Senator Tim Scott (41 percent), both fellow Republicans.
The senator’s spokesperson, Abby Zilch, dismissed the survey and insisted: “South Carolina voters trust the America First agenda, and Senator Graham remains one of its fiercest defenders in the U.S. Senate.”
The MAGA movement’s attitude toward Graham is not always favorable. He briefly ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015 but dropped out before the primaries and went on to criticize Trump, the eventual winner, particularly over his attacks on Senator John McCain.
Graham rapidly changed his tone once Trump secured the White House and has been mostly loyal ever since, notably opposing his impeachment. However, he has been accused of kowtowing to Democrats on immigration and climate change while also criticizing the president’s blanket pardon for Capitol rioters.
Another exception is Iran, a subject the senator has been hawkish about for decades, insisting that regime change is the only answer to the threat posed by the rogue nuclear state when many vocal members of the president’s coalition like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene remain doggedly opposed to U.S. involvement in “forever wars” overseas.
With the senator not necessarily able to depend on Trumpworld for support, even with the president’s endorsement, South Carolinians may be tempted to consider regime change themselves after more than 20 years of Graham.
Here’s a look at some of his potential challengers.
Andre Bauer
South Carolina’s former lieutenant governor has announced he is mounting a primary campaign to challenge Graham, arguing the incumbent is a “globalist” and not conservative enough to meet the Palmetto State’s needs.
A Trump backer and, like the president, a wealthy developer, Bauer has said of his rival: “I think Graham’s been there too long, and he votes like it. I’m guaranteed, I’m conservative, and I don’t think he is.”
Zilch, Graham’s spokesperson, has hit back at Bauer by saying he has “spent his career chasing titles to feed his ego.”
Ominously for Graham, the notoriously changeable Trump has called Bauer “a friend of mine, somebody that could I think run for almost any office and win.”
Mark Lynch
Another Republican running to the right of Graham, the business owner announced his challenge in February by accusing the senator of being a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only) and declaring: “Lindsey is not one of us, we all know that.”
Acknowledging Graham’s superior campaign resources, Lynch said: “We the people spoke during Trump’s election, and we are going to speak again. Lindsey Graham doesn’t have the money that God does.”
Annie Andrews
A pediatrician and former Democratic House candidate, Dr. Andrews unsuccessfully challenged Nancy Mace in the 2022 election.
She has already come out swinging against Graham with an astonishing attack advert in which she leans into her medical background by saying parents trust her to “treat their kids for just about everything you can imagine” and comparing the senator to a patient suffering from constipation, declaring: “This is an adult who is also completely and unequivocally full of s***.”
She goes on to show footage of Graham referring to Trump as a “kook” and voting through his more questionable cabinet nominees like Robert F Kennedy Jr and Linda McMahon, making her case as a firmly anti-Trump candidate.
Dr. Andrews previously told The Hill the senator has “changed his position on nearly every issue over that time and that’s because, in my view, he doesn’t stand for anything or believe in anything other than what it takes to get re-elected.”
The Graham campaign has accused her, in turn, of “pushing a radical liberal agenda that is out of touch with South Carolina.”
Brandon Brown
Brown, a Greenville native, university administrator, and Democrat, has said he is running against Graham “because I believe our communities deserve more – and Lindsey Graham has forgotten who he represents.
“We need to protect Medicaid, our rural hospitals, and farmers from the destructive policies Lindsey Graham champions in Washington. South Carolina deserves leadership that reflects our values and fights for our future.
“I am running for Senate to be a voice for the voiceless. We’re going to bring decency and common sense back to Washington.”
Both Andrews and Brown are up against it: no Democrat has held the seat since 1964, when Strom Thurmond changed his allegiance to Republican after holding it for eight years as a “Dixiecrat” liberal.
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