On the menu today: We start with what is known about the newest U.S. senator, Darline Graham Nordone of South Carolina . . . which is not much, beyond her close relationship with her brother, the late Senator Lindsey Graham. Then it’s time to throw more cold water on the Kamala Harris 2028 buzz, while noting that a recent New York magazine article talking up the former vice president’s chances ignored one of her biggest strategic advantages. Read on.
What We Know About Darline Graham
One week ago today, Darline Graham Nordone — she does not go by her married name — was sworn in as one of South Carolina’s two U.S. senators. At the time of her appointment by Governor Henry McMaster, the widespread expectation was that she would be a caretaker senator, serving for the remaining six months in her brother’s term. But on Friday, President Trump posted on Truth Social, “I asked Darline, for the Good of our Nation, to run for the U.S. Senate in the Special Republican Primary . . . there would be nobody better to honor the legacy of her beloved brother, Lindsey.”
Last night in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, Darline Graham announced she would run for a full term in November. Filing to run for the seat begins today and is open until July 28; the special primary will be held August 11. If no one gets 50 percent in that primary, a runoff between the top two finishers will be held August 25. The winner will take on Democrat Annie Andrews in November; because it is South Carolina, the winner of the Republican primary will be heavily favored in the general election.
Yesterday, Senator Tom Cotton endorsed her, writing, “I’m proud to join President Trump and endorse Darline Graham. She’ll be a principled conservative leader and a strong advocate for South Carolina families.”
With all due respect to the senator, who is probably right . . . how do we know?
We can be certain that Darline Graham loved her brother dearly, and she’s running as a Republican. Beyond that, she’s never run for office before, given a policy speech, floor remarks, or an interview where she’s been pressed on specific legislative issues. (One minor exception: In her interview with Hannity, she did mention, “There were some things I felt like were very important to Lindsey — Russia sanctions — and I really wanted to push those across the finish line.”)
It seems likely that she largely agreed with her brother’s worldview and governing philosophy, but that feels like an assumption. She has less of a paper trail than former Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Her account on X was created earlier this month.
Darline Graham is 62. After losing both her parents at age 13, her older brother became her legal guardian, ensuring that if he passed, she would be able to collect his military benefits. She majored in sociology and minored in psychology at the College of Charleston and earned a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from South Carolina State University in 2009. (A perhaps surprising note: South Carolina State University is a Historically Black College or University.)
Since 2019, she has served as commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind. Colleagues describe her as dedicated, and not particularly political.
“She loved her brother. He raised her,” said Kimberly Tissot, president of Able South Carolina, the state’s Center for Independent Living, or CIL, a federally funded center that provides peer support and services for people with disabilities.
“Family is what defines her, but she’s not her brother. That’s what I’ve been telling people [in disability advocacy],” said Tissot, a cancer survivor and amputee who has known and worked alongside Graham for over a decade. “She is a leader, but she’s not the kind of leader to ever brag about what she’s done.”
Tissot was careful to note that she doesn’t think Graham is some kind of secret liberal or a disability rights activist. In fact, Tissot said, Graham has never seemed particularly political; her dedication has been to her family and to employment for people with disabilities, which has long been a bipartisan issue.
From her LinkedIn page, Graham worked as director of public information for the South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Department.
In 2015, Darline Graham did an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, describing her childhood with her brother.
In a letter to her constituents posted on X on July 18, the new senator wrote, “I am not Lindsey. I have my own way of doing things. But we were raised with the same values: Work hard every day, trust in the Lord, remember our roots and never forget who you work for. That’s why I’ve spent my career helping South Carolinians with disabilities find employment and live independently.”
Prior to this year, Darline Graham’s public presence was almost entirely as her brother’s supporter and surrogate. She appeared alongside him at campaign events, and was featured in some of his campaign ads. She introduced Lindsey at his first speech launching his 2016 presidential campaign, and she discussed their childhood publicly during his Senate races.
It is hard not to be moved, watching video of the late Senator Graham in 2015 discussing her. “Of all the things that have happened in my life, her turning out so well was the highlight of it, by far, because she was 13, lost both of her parents, she’s got two daughters, one 21, one six, and she’s made an incredible life for herself. When she got up there and introduced me [during his presidential campaign announcement], it was just about all I could do to speak.”
In that interview, Graham talked a bit about the likelihood of being a bachelor president, and the likelihood that his sister might play a role in his White House.
“She would be a support network for me, I haven’t really thought much about it, but at the end of the day, whatever I ask her to do, she would do, and if she took a role on, she’d be a great representative of the country,” Graham said. “I can’t think of a better person to represent our country at an event than my sister.”
Right now, three other Republicans have declared interest in running for that U.S. Senate seat: Representatives Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, and Mark Lynch, who challenged Lindsey Graham in the primary earlier this year. (I would link to Darline Graham’s campaign website out of fairness, but she doesn’t have one yet. Nor does she have anything beyond the bare bones for her U.S. Senate webpage.) Note that despite Trump’s endorsement of Darline Graham, both Norman and Fry are touting themselves as “Trump conservatives.”
Darline Graham may well turn out to be an excellent senator. But with just three weeks before the primary, South Carolina Republicans are being asked to make a choice with exceptionally little information about the de facto incumbent. And U.S. Senate seats are not family heirlooms.
In the Kamala Harris Buzz, No One’s Talking About the 2028 Primary Schedule
New York magazine contends, “Like it or not, Kamala Harris is the front runner” for the Democratic nomination in 2028. Our Noah Rothman finds the arguments of the Harris cheerleaders particularly unpersuasive, and declares her advisers are “delusional.”
Interestingly, that article touting Harris doesn’t spend much time on what strikes me as the impending greatest advantage of a 2028 Harris presidential campaign. We don’t know what the schedule and order of early states is going to be on the Democratic side, but we know that one of the four earliest primaries will be in the south, either Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, or Virginia.
In any of those states, the black vote will be key in a Democratic presidential primary. It would not be shocking to see something similar to the 2020 dynamic — white progressive candidates running on a Bernie Sanders agenda competing for the other largely white primary states, and then some non-Sanders-esque candidate, who is popular among blacks, easily wins that first southern contest, and then goes on to similarly large margins of victory in the southern states and accumulates an insurmountable lead among delegates to the convention. The only serious southern potential Democratic presidential candidate, so far, is Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. Ironically, in this scenario, Harris would be playing the role of . . . Joe Biden.
As our Phil Klein noted last week, in this year’s Democratic primaries, blacks have so far shown little to no interest in candidates who emphasize their support for socialism. Blacks may traditionally vote heavily in favor of Democratic candidates, but that doesn’t mean they’re heavily progressive; many are “small-c conservatives,” meaning risk-averse and not interested in some old guy from Vermont who wants to completely overhaul existing society and the economy.
As for Harris’s supposedly strong poll numbers, continue to color me skeptical. Yes, Al Gore had pretty good numbers in 2002, and John Edwards had pretty good poll numbers in 2006. (Interestingly, Democratic primary voters were pretty tepid on both John Kerry and Hillary Clinton two years after their presidential defeats.)
Alex Thompson adds, “Following her in New Orleans, Jackson, and Memphis earlier this year, she was a rock star.” Sure, but showing up for an event like Kamala Harris’s book tour is a sign of “#Resistance,” not an indication that she will be your favorite option in a crowded Democratic presidential primary field.
ADDENDUM: In case you missed it yesterday, why you probably shouldn’t build key AI data centers within the range of Iran’s drones, and the Trump administration is reportedly thinking of negotiating a cease-fire with the Iranian mullahs again.
Because the last cease-fire worked out so well, right?