Republicans Mock ‘October Surprise’ Exposé on Lindsey Graham, Saying Stunt Could Bolster Sister’s Campaign

An attempted “October surprise” aimed at Senator Darline Graham — whose brother Lindsey Graham is being posthumously accused of paying for sex with male escorts — is earning a contemptuous response from Republicans who say the effort to smear the late senator will only backfire.A left-wing news and commentary outlet, The Young Turks, released a 30-minute video on Thursday featuring three men who claim to have been male escorts who had encounters with the perennially single Graham, whose sexuality was repeatedly questioned over the decades. The video, titled “The CLOSETocracy” does not provide direct evidence that Graham ever had sex with men, and relies on the testimony of the three men who appeared in the video. The video was produced by Swamp Watch Studios and Tystnaden Films, and distributed by The Young Turks, which is run by Stitch streamer Hasan Piker’s uncle, Cenk Uygur. Graham was asked many times during his congressional career if he was gay, given his dearth of a dating life and his flamboyant personality. “I know it’s really gonna upset a lot of gay men — I’m sure hundreds of ’em are gonna be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge — but I ain’t available. I ain’t gay. Sorry,” Graham said jokingly in an interview with New York Magazine in 2010. Graham died unexpectedly due to an aortic dissection in July. President Trump persuaded South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, to appoint Graham’s sister to complete his term, which was coming up for re-election in November. Accepting the post, Ms. Graham then decided to run for a full term to the dismay of many of the state’s conservative voters. Some Republicans on Thursday claimed that Graham’s sexuality was an open secret among some circles, and that the attempt at an October surprise to make Ms. Graham look bad with conservative Palmetto State voters would do nothing to hurt her chances next month. A spokesman for Turning Point USA and a current host of The Charlie Kirk Show, Andrew Kolvet — who has taken over much of the management of TPUSA since Kirk’s 2025 murder — said Republicans knew Graham was gay long before the claims were made in the video on Thursday. “Dear Democrats, This is why we called him Lady Graham. This isn’t an October surprise, we’ve known this for years. And blaming his sister for the fact Lindsey was a poorly closeted gay man, is only going to backfire,” Mr. Kolvet wrote. “No one cares.”Conservative commentator Michael Knowles, who knew Graham well for years before the senator’s passing, chimed in with his own joke. “My craziest conspiracy theory — the one most likely to scandalize and enrage people across the political spectrum — is that Lindsey Graham might not have been a homosexual,” Mr. Knowles wrote on X. A close friend of Vice President JD Vance, conservative writer Rod Dreher, said the hiring of prostitutes should be condemned if those allegations are true, but the claim that Graham was gay is nowhere near a campaign scandal for Ms. Graham. “This is the big ‘October Surprise’? That Lindsey Graham was gay, and hired gay prostitutes? Big deal,” Mr. Dreher wrote on X Thursday. “First, this is not surprising. Second … Graham is dead. I think it’s surpassingly dumb that Trump anointed his sister to fill his light loafers, but she’s not her brother.”Others brushed the claim off as a nothingburger or a failed attempt to try to smear Ms. Graham, who is in the middle of a tight Senate election. Others posted about the seeming hypocrisy of progressive liberals trying to shame a gay man while still others noted the swift condemnation that came from Democrats after Ohio’s Vivek Ramaswamy used his opponent’s mother in a campaign ad to make her look bad.Many X users sarcastically posted either video or photos from the night Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, when Mr. Trump spoke to reporters and said, “Wow, I didn’t know that. You’re telling me now for the first time.”Ms. Graham has long said that her brother was like a parent to her, with the adult Graham adopting his sister after their parents passed away when she was a young girl. Now that she has succeeded her brother in the Senate and on the campaign trail, Ms. Graham has had difficulties. According to polling, Ms. Graham is leading her Democratic opponent Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who has never held elected office. She raised less than one-tenth of what Dr. Andrews raised during the third quarter, and needed nearly $900,000 in outside spending from Mr. Trump to just narrowly win the GOP primary runoff this summer. Now Senate Republicans are pouring $5 million into South Carolina to help get her over the finish line. The money is being pulled from other states like Georgia and North Carolina, where Republicans had hoped to pull out long-shot victories.On Wednesday, other problems appeared to be brewing inside the GOP tent for Ms. Graham after supporters of her vanquished primary opponent, hardline conservative lawmaker Congressman Ralph Norman, said they would launch a write-in campaign on his behalf. He has declined to participate in such an effort and says he plans to vote for Ms. Graham. Mr. Norman’s family does not plan to do so, however, and Mr. Norman has told Ms. Graham’s campaign staff that he will not campaign with her in the state. “My family is not going to vote for Darline Graham. They’re just not,” Mr. Norman said during an appearance on “The National Briefing with Kelly Nash” on Wednesday. “They’re grown and with their own children can do what they want, but I will because I promised to do that.”“My message is vote for conscience and let the chips fall where they may,” Mr. Norman continued. “This race shouldn’t even be close, and it wouldn’t be if I were in the race.”

Republicans Mock ‘October Surprise’ Exposé on Lindsey Graham, Saying Stunt Could Bolster Sister’s Campaign

Republicans Mock ‘October Surprise’ Exposé on Lindsey Graham, Saying Stunt Could Bolster Sister’s Campaign

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