Six weeks after Senator Lindsey Graham’s sudden death, South Carolina Republicans will choose a nominee to replace him in a primary runoff tomorrow.

The contest has emerged as the latest test of President Trump’s power in G.O.P. primaries. He’s backing Senator Darline Graham, who was appointed to replace her brother despite her lack of political experience. She faces Representative Ralph Norman, a hard-line conservative lawmaker who has at times clashed with Trump.

Trump, whose approval rating has slipped this year, is finding that his endorsement is not the primary-season seal of approval it once was. Just this month, his choices have lost four Republican contests for House seats and two more in governor’s contests.

Our reporter Emily Davies has been chronicling the rapid-fire primary. We chatted today about what to expect from the Palmetto State tomorrow and beyond:

Emily, you have been back and forth to South Carolina a few times to cover this race. What does it tell us about the state and President Trump’s ability to influence Republican voters?

Someone from the White House actually asked me if I had moved full-time to South Carolina, so I would say it’s been a busy few weeks!

Trump has gone all in for Darline Graham ever since the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham. Trump traveled to the state to rally for her, and he personally called Republican officials in South Carolina to ask them to endorse her. If voters opt instead for Ralph Norman, who frankly annoys the president at least some of the time, it will be a real sign that while Trump’s core voters may still like him, they are no longer willing to simply follow his lead.

Darline Graham has not really helped herself, either. She has struggled to quickly establish a political identity beyond being Lindsey Graham’s sister. What case is she trying to make to voters?

Well, she and her team (which basically includes the president at this point) have done a great job getting her name out there. She was pretty much absent from the political scene for the first 61 years of her life, and now everyone I’ve talked to in South Carolina knows who she is.

Unfortunately for her, most people have also heard about her big gaffe at a debate last week. She tripped up on a question about the importance of Taiwan to U.S. interests and admitted that she was “not that informed on national security.”

Many candidates stumble during debates, but this one has stuck in part because voters already had a lot of questions about whether Graham is prepared enough for the job. She has been trying to use her status as a political outsider to her advantage, which is definitely effective for some people in the state who just HATE Washington.

The worst kinds of political gaffes are the ones that reinforce a negative perception voters already have. What has Norman said about Graham’s debate flub?

As you might expect, he has leaned into the moment. Soon after the debate, he shared a clip of her answer on social media and said the state deserved a senator who “UNDERSTANDS Foreign Policy.” His tag line from the start has been that he is the only “proven conservative” in the race, so her mistake played right into his campaign strategy. He’s had a good week.

What is the deal with Norman? He went from urging Trump to declare “Marshall law” to overturn the 2020 election to running against a Trump-endorsed Senate candidate. Besides grasping how to use spell check, has Norman evolved as a Trump acolyte?

Let’s just say that when Trump got a list of possible candidates to succeed Lindsey Graham, he didn’t have great things to say about Ralph Norman. There is one easy explanation: Norman endorsed Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, for president in 2024 over Trump. Trump does not forget that type of thing. (Haley has endorsed Norman in this race.)

Norman also been a thorn in Trump’s side for a good portion of this year, as our colleague Michael Gold laid out today. Norman is the vice chair of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of ultraconservative Republicans who are so opposed to government spending that they have repeatedly held up G.O.P.-backed legislation, including the president’s own domestic policy law. So it’s safe to say that Trump would not take especially kindly to a Senator Norman, at least at first.

No, and I don’t imagine a Senator Norman would feel great loyalty to Trump, either. South Carolina is a red state. Trump won it by 18 percentage points in 2024. Is there much reason to believe the Senate seat could be in play in November no matter which Republican emerges tomorrow?

That’s a good question and also one that I don’t want to answer, because who knows?! Most Republican officials I’ve talked to think South Carolina will stay solidly Republican, but they’re also on edge because they see Democratic enthusiasm as through the roof.

Sorry for the non-answer, but get used to it out of South Carolina. The state will vote first in the 2028 Democratic primary for president — which means it’s the new stomping ground for candidates testing out their very own non-answers.

number of the day

6

That’s how many Senate races are now considered tossups by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, which recently moved contests in Iowa and Texas out of “the Lean Republican” category and into “Tossup.”

My colleague Tim Balk explains why Democrats appear to be newly competitive in their uphill fight for Senate control.

QUOTE of the day

“It’s bringing together three-time Trump voters, anti-vaxxers, environmentalists, independents, nonvoters.”

That’s William Lawrence, a progressive activist and the Democratic nominee for a key Michigan House seat, describing how he and other candidates have seized on a growing backlash to data centers.

My colleague Shane Goldmacher breaks down how this rising opposition to the key engines of the A.I. revolution has suddenly become a major issue in the midterms.

ONE LAST THING

A fashionable democratic socialist

Eon Huntley is not only a sales associate at Bergdorf Goodman for the Row: He is also a democratic socialist running for the New York State Assembly.

Emily Davies and Steven Moity contributed reporting.

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