WASHINGTON (AP) — The field of Republican candidates vying to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham on November ballots is set, with 12 hopefuls filing their paperwork by Tuesday and launching into a two-week sprint toward the Aug. 11 special GOP primary.It’s been a jumbled and frenetic period during what would have otherwise been Graham’s expected glide path toward a fifth term. He won his June primary outright, and no Democrat has won a statewide-elected office in South Carolina for two decades.Graham’s sudden death earlier this month at age 71 has sparked a rushed and compressed process leading to a special primary election in just two weeks.The close of a one-week filing period for the South Carolina contest was Tuesday, the same day as the first of two funerals across Washington and Graham’s home state. The rare open Senate seat has drawn some of the state’s top Republicans, longshots, familiar faces — and Graham’s sister. If no candidate receives a majority vote, a runoff election will be held Aug. 25.
Darline Graham, the interim appointee, is a political unknownFor years, Darline Graham had been her older brother’s political confidant, appearing in his ads, by his side at rallies and an indelible part of his biography, from their shared roughshod beginnings to his adoption of her following their parents’ deaths.In the hours after her brother died, Darline Graham stepped into Lindsey Graham’s shoes in the Senate as the appointee to fulfill the remaining months of his current term, selected by Republican Gov. Henry McMaster to serve until January. Now she’s running for the nomination to replace him more permanently.Darline Graham is a political unknown to the South Carolina voters who for decades returned her brother to Washington. Although she had been part of his campaigns, she’s never been a political commodity in her own right, and there have been questions in South Carolina’s GOP circles over whether goodwill toward her brother’s memory is enough to send her to the Senate.
