Someone Stupid Heads From South Carolina to DC

The South Carolina special election to replace the late, great, peace-loving US Senator Lindsey Graham was held last night — this was a runoff after the initial multi-candidate initial round — and I can confidently say that the stupid won in a big way.

Let’s get the basics out of the way and then we’ll spend a little time in the cesspool that is South Carolina politics, including a look at the meltdown of cable TV star congressional Rep. Nancy Mace and the deep corruption of Dem. Rep. Jim Clyburn and his alliance with the state GOP.

Here’s the Wiki on the race to catch up.

Dumbass Darline Won, Really?

In the final stretch of the campaign last week Darline Graham put on a Hall of Fame bad performance, piling gaffe upon gaffe atop admissions of ignorance, all capped by a completely insane special rally appearance by POTUS Trump.

Here’s the basics from the AP:

Sen. Darline Graham — a political newcomer appointed to the seat held by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham — will win a special GOP primary runoff to replace her brother on the South Carolina ballot, the Associated Press projected Tuesday.

Graham, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, defeated Rep. Ralph Norman, a staunch conservative and member of the hard line Freedom Caucus, who had also advanced to the runoff, following South Carolina’s special Senate primary earlier this month.

Graham will face Democratic candidate Annie Andrews in November.
…
“Now, the critics say I shouldn’t run for the Senate. They say I’m not a politician. You know what I say? Guilty as charged,” Graham said during the rally to cheers. “And by the way, President Trump had never served in an elected office before, and I think he’s done a damn good job.”

Trump, later on, effusively praised Graham, saying “she only knows how to put America first.”

We should note that even Sainted Brother Lindsey didn’t go unchallenged, having won a 6 way primary just weeks before his tragic, tragic, tragic, death:

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham walloped his GOP challengers Tuesday on the way to fulfilling his pledge to be President Donald Trump’s “best ally” in the U.S. Senate.

When The Associated Press called the race about 9 p.m., Graham had more than 58% of the vote to again avoid a primary runoff, continuing an unbroken record. In November, he will face Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who won a three-way primary for the chance to be South Carolina’s first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate seat in 28 years.

First elected to the Senate in 2002, Graham has never needed a runoff.

Tuesday marked the third time he’s fended off crowded GOP fields: In 2020, he bested three GOP opponents with almost 68% of the vote. In 2014, he took 56% of the vote in a seven-way race.

He ended up with five GOP opponents in this primary, after one dropped out in April. With all votes counted, Graham had 57% of the vote, a 28-percentage-point lead over his closest challenger, according to unofficial state Election Commission results.

So the dude was popular with the SC GOP base, but not unchallenged.

But polling did show voters wanted a replacement just like Lindsey or did they? Per the Post and Courier:

Like any politician, Graham had detractors. Some South Carolina conservatives labeled him “Liberal Lindsey” for his one-time role in bipartisan talks to address perennially thorny and unsolved political issues like illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, moderate conservatives, as well as Democrats, detested Graham’s unwavering support of President Donald Trump — especially after he initially broke with Trump over the president’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough,” Graham said after the riot, before soon reversing course and becoming one of Trump’s closest allies as well as a regular golfing buddy.

But for all the grousing, Graham rarely faced serious competition, easily fending off challengers from the right and left. None of his opponents could claim such personal proximity to a president.

…

A majority of voters interviewed by The Post and Courier said that even as Graham is gone, they hope his successor carries on his legacy, specifically by acting in the interests of South Carolinians while also exhibiting a deft touch in the realm of foreign policy.

They also expressed a hope the next senator lowers the temperature in Washington and works on behalf of all people, not just groups who are already in the victor’s corner.

Well that was funny, but wait til you see what they’re getting instead.

Darline, Political Natural, as In, She Put In No Visible Effort

Let’s check out a few clips to see Darline in action because nothing says rotten-corrupt-oligarchic-empire-clinging-to-the-empty-forms-of-a-republic like electing someone this obviously unfit for office, any office.

Darline on foreign policy:

Moderator: Senator, are Taiwan and the South China sea national security issues for the United States and if so, why?

Darline Graham: National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise but I support the military. pic.twitter.com/F0FEFmc6GW

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 19, 2026

Hannity helps out

Hannity: I bet based on all your time with your brother, that you know probably everything about the Middle East….

Darline Graham: Absolutely. I know national security is important. We have a wonderful commander in chief. I know that we need to stand with Israel… pic.twitter.com/Df6cVQHmyW

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 20, 2026

Darline on Affordability (Which means what, exactly? Inflation? Economics? Help me out here, I don’t watch enough cable news to keep up.)

Was this Darline Graham’s Nancy Pelosi moment?

Graham now says we’ll have to elect her to find out what her plans are on “affordablity.”

Graham was saying no one cares about her lack of knowledge of China because South Carolina voters only care about affordability.

So Ed… pic.twitter.com/VUq6Phguyo

— Tara Servatius (@TaraServatius) August 25, 2026

It was a professional, team effort:

🚨HOT MIC: A hot mic catches Darline Graham’s campaign staff telling a reporter, “Nothing too difficult here” before asking her a question.

Shes running a Joe Biden campaign‼️ pic.twitter.com/kwMcMwP5qN

— Ralph Norman Fan (@RalphNormanFan) August 20, 2026

And if that wasn’t enough to get any politician tarred and feathered and carried out on a rail in a functioning republic, POTUS Trump put on possibly his most deranged performance ever in Myrtle Beach the Friday before the election.

Doesn’t Get Any Trumpier Than This

This is the full hour plus rally which I’m including because it really is one for the history books blogs:

Roll Call has a complete transcript.

Self-appointed “political referee” and utter cipher (seriously he’s the blankest, emptiest professional reporter I’ve ever met in person) Chris Cillizza summed up the “27 Wackiest Lines”, some highlights:

Trump: “I’ll make you a deal that if Darline wins, I’ll come down and play the best golfer in Myrtle Beach in a match.
…
“I think Lindsey respected Darline more than any other person he knows, including me. That does not make me happy.
…
“I got the highest gay vote in the history of politics for a Republican.
…
“Tariffs, it’s my all-time favorite word. I love tariffs. I love the word. It’s made us rich as hell.
…
“Tariff is my fifth favorite word – after God, religion, wife, children.
…
“I’m going to be impeached. They’re gonna impeach me.”

“These are lunatics. These are people that are vicious, violent, that weaponize the justice system, the Justice Department, and they wanna destroy our country. They wanna see that our country failed. They want our country to fail.
…
“I’m doing this to honor Lindsey. I’m doing this to honor Lindsey. That’s why I’m here. I don’t have to be here on a Friday. I don’t have to be here. Although I must say I love it. And now that I am here, we got plenty of time to talk, right?
…
“So the Democrats hate our country. They’re communists. They’re radical left lunatics. And frankly, they’re, in many cases, horrible, horrible people.

Somehow this worked with SC GOP voters.

Her Opponent Explains

Rep. Ralph Norman re-enacted the ancient SNL “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy” sketch instead of writing a concession speech:

Rep. Norman zeroed in on Trump’s endorsement of Graham and the funding she received from super PACs.

“You know the president got involved. He has that right. That’s his prerogative,” Norman said, sparking a series of boos from the crowd.

“Y’all, his policies are good,” he said in response to the boos. “I never understood why he got in this race to beat, you know, but it is, it is what it is, and I’ll accept it.”

Norman said, “All our money came from South Carolina and from my personal account.”

“The other, my opponent’s, the money came from outside PACs,” he said. “We had $8 million spent against us. I couldn’t, we couldn’t come up with that much money, but people were great to me.”

Norman reluctantly said he would back Graham in the general election while also saying of the outcome, “I really hate it for the state.”

“I’m not supporting the Democrat. So I will support her, Darline, as best I can,” he said.

Go team!

Norman did have a few million points about the money in the race, although this isn’t the usual AIPAC or data center money we’re used to seeing piling in:

Note the Green Energy money organized by former MoveOn.org boss Tom Matzzie. Also note that Norman is probably wildly over-stating how much of their money went into that race.

I wonder if Darline will be amenable to their influence?

So how did this happen?

How South Carolina’s Open Primaries Work for the Uniparty

Some states limit primary participation to registered party members, others, like S.C., limit voters to one party per election cycle but otherwise voters are free to mingle.

From Ballotpedia:

As South Carolina does not provide for registration by party, party primaries are open. Voters may choose which party’s ballot they wish to vote on in the primary, but may only vote in one party’s primary. Winners in primary contests are determined by majority vote. If no candidate wins a majority, a runoff election is held two weeks following the primary.

In 23 states, at least one political party utilizes closed primaries to nominate partisan candidates for congressional and state-level (e.g. state legislators, governors, etc.) offices. In 18 states, at least one party utilizes open primaries to nominate partisan candidates for these offices. In 13 states, at least one party utilizes semi-closed primaries. In 5 states, top-two primaries or a variation are used. These state primaries are a separate entity and are not included in the totals for open, closed, or semi-closed primaries.

Some commentary on how this process plays out from a leading on the ground organizer for the late Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA in SC:

FWIW as results come in, South Carolina has open primaries which allow democrats to vote in Republican Primary elections.

For the runoff, if Democrats didn’t vote in the primary, they can be targeted to vote in the Republican Primary runoff for a second dip at Democrats.… https://t.co/E17ZFFf4fV

— Tyler Bowyer (@tylerbowyer) August 25, 2026

Some context:

Bookmark this. It will make the shocking way Darline Graham votes in the coming years make sense.

Charlie Kirk’s organization TPUSA backed Ralph Norman in the primary runoff.

Tyler Bowyer runs nationwide field operations for them, a massive turnout operation backed by tens of… https://t.co/MpX7WX4NZV

— Tara Servatius (@TaraServatius) August 26, 2026

Full tweet:

Bookmark this. It will make the shocking way Darline Graham votes in the coming years make sense.

Charlie Kirk’s organization TPUSA backed Ralph Norman in the primary runoff.

Tyler Bowyer runs nationwide field operations for them, a massive turnout operation backed by tens of millions of dollars.

Here he is explaining why even TPUSA couldn’t beat the Graham machine because of the machine’s legendary ability to turn out Democrats to dilute and cancel Republican votes in South Carolina primaries.

The Graham machine does that by ensuring Republican primaries remain open to Democrat voting, then targeting and turning Democrats out.

That’s why South Carolina essentially functions as a purple state despite having a deep red voter base.

That and the millions dumped into the race on behalf of Darline Graham by the Democrat PAC, Invest in Tomorrow, made beating the UniParty in South Carolina a tough task.

All the donors to Invest in Tomorrow backed Kamala Harris, and most are former Biden and Obama officials.

That’s who Graham now owes for her election.

Bookmark this. It will make the shocking way Darline Graham votes with the Democrats on key bills in the coming years make sense.

People will say she betrayed Trump, but as Graham explained when asked about the Democrat PACs backing her, she is happy to take support from anywhere.

It was always clear who she was: one of them.

The GOP voters on the coast who put her in office just didn’t know.

Note that Servatius is wildly over-stating how much Invest in Tomorrow put into the race — only $1M spent against Norman out of a $6.8M national budget, not the whole thing.

Don’t worry though, it’s a two-way street and the state’s token Democratic congressman Jim Clyburn (you’ll remember him from such stolen elections as the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary where GOP voters claimed to be organizing to vote for Sanders and against Biden, but the vote totals didn’t turn out that way at all).

Let’s talk about that.

How Clyburn Works With the GOP

Jim Clyburn is effectively the Democratic party in SC because the GOP protects his gerrymandered seat and even gives him a role in drawing the lines, per ProPublica:

The Supreme Court could decide to restore the map that the Republicans drew or order the legislature to create a new map. The case comes after a series of rulings from the high court that have made partisan gerrymandering easier, though the court has still deemed redistricting predominantly based on race to be illegal. Legal experts said this week that the South Carolina case will help define the limits of how much a legislature can consider race as it draws new maps.

South Carolina Republicans have defended their efforts, saying they were not motivated to dilute Black political power in the state. Lawyers for state Republican leaders argued during the trial that they did not consider race in making their map. They also contended that their map could not have targeted Black voters because they worked with Clyburn, one of the most powerful Black Democrats in the country.

This month, ProPublica added new detail to this account, reporting that Clyburn had been more involved in the process than previously known. He recommended moving Black and white voters in such a way that made his district politically safer but hurt Black Democrats.

It’s a small club and the voters ain’t in it.

Ok let’s cover Nancy Mace real quick.

That Old TV Talking Head She Ain’t What She Used To Be

Poor Nancy, she spent several years being national famous among cable TV news addicts and it seems to have driven her mad.

The WaPo had the best summary:

Rep. Nancy Mace’s trouncing in Tuesday’s South Carolina gubernatorial primary dealt a blunt defeat to a once rising GOP star, a politician who had basked in national attention during her dramatic political transformation.

Mace had real political talent and promise, but her downfall and isolation followed years of brazen political opportunism, a hunger for media attention at any cost, rejecting advisers’ counsel and turning on many allies, more than a dozen former aides, colleagues and supporters in both South Carolina and Washington said in interviews.

She finished fifth in the contest, according to unofficial returns, solidly losing even her own home county and district.

Mace arrived in Congress after flipping a Charleston-area district in 2020 and built a reputation as a moderate who appealed to swing voters. She voted to codify same-sex marriage rights, called herself “pro transgender rights” and urged her party to “meet in the middle” with Democrats on abortion. By last year, Mace had begun repeatedly mocking transgender people as “trannies” and disparaged gay relationships on social media. In recent days, Mace suggested a Republican opponent in the governor’s race came from “a slum in India.”

There used to be a word we used for people, especially women who did things they wouldn’t otherwise do for reasons of money and power but from now on I’ll just say “they be Nancy Mace-ing.”

And Mace’s hubristic decision to try to move up to the Governor’s mansion means her congressional seat is open and one of the contenders just got fired from the Pentagon by Defense War Greasy Pete Hegseth.

Oh Boy, Another Female Dem Deep State Nominee!

From the SC Daily Gazette:

In the state’s most competitive congressional race, a former chief of the Navy Reserve and a Charleston County councilwoman will face off for the coastal 1st District in November.

In Tuesday’s runoff election, Jenny Costa Honeycutt, an attorney, clinched the Republican nomination over state Rep. Mark Smith. Honeycutt took about 54% of the vote, according to unofficial state Election Commission results.

She will face retired-Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who received 52% of Democrats’ votes over Charleston attorney Mac Deford.

And for a final 2000 words:

pic.twitter.com/4eCd4ufRyh

— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) August 26, 2026

Guess which one is more likely to party with Rep. Lauren Boebert and which one you’d want if you needed to trigger a Palantir-powered AI kill chain or root out Russian disinformation.

See y’all next week.

Follow my work at NatWilsonTurner.com