Trump To Rally with Darline Graham Ahead of Special South Carolina Senate Primary

President Trump and Senator Darline Graham will hold a rally together this week ahead of the special South Carolina Senate primary. Ms. Graham was appointed to serve out the remainder of her late brother’s term and later launched an unexpected campaign for a full six-year term. Ms. Graham and her brother, Senator Lindsey Graham, were exceptionally close up until the day that he died. It was Mr. Trump, a onetime foe of the late senator who later became one of his chief allies on Capitol Hill, who first pitched the idea of having Ms. Graham as the new senator from South Carolina. After she was sworn into office, Mr. Trump says he met with her at the White House and urged her to mount a campaign. Days later, she did just that. Now, the South Carolina Republican Party is hosting a special GOP primary for the Senate race. Graham, who died last month after he suffered an aortic dissection, had recently won the primary for this year’s general election, meaning his party would have to host a do-over contest to determine who would inherit the Republican nomination. In South Carolina, the GOP has what is known as a runoff voting system, meaning that if no candidate receives a majority of the vote on election day, then a second election between the top-two vote getters is held just weeks later. Ms. Graham came in first place in that first round of voting, though she won less than one-third of the vote. In second place was a hardline conservative House Republican from the state, Congressman Ralph Norman. “We’ve gotta all coalesce [and] come together because we’ve got some socialist Democrats we have got to beat,” Mr. Norman said after he won his spot in the runoff election. In an effort to beat back Mr. Norman, Mr. Trump himself will travel to the state on Friday to campaign with Ms. Graham. Over the last 18 months, Mr. Trump has largely stayed off the campaign trail, even for primaries where he had made an endorsement. His trip to the Palmetto State at the end of this week marks only the ninth rally he has held a rally this year for a Republican primary candidate that he is supporting. The primary is being held next Tuesday, just two weeks after the first round of voting took place. Republicans are trying to cram as many events as possible into that 14-day time period, including a debate on Tuesday night, one week before the election, as well as a candidate forum that had been scheduled for Friday. The South Carolina Republican Party announced on Monday that the event was being postponed because Ms. Graham was attending a rally with the president. There have been no public polls released ahead of the primary runoff, though one poll first shared with the Federalist showed Mr. Norman with a significant lead. According to that survey, Mr. Noman is leading by 12 points, 52 percent to Ms. Graham’s 40 percent.

Trump To Rally with Darline Graham Ahead of Special South Carolina Senate Primary

Trump To Rally with Darline Graham Ahead of Special South Carolina Senate Primary

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