Sen. Darline Graham, the sister of late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), tried to reimagine how she secured a seat her brother held for decades as she fielded reporters’ questions after casting her ballot in Tuesday’s special GOP primary.
“Senator, what do you say to folks that are saying that you’re just being handed the seat?” asked one journalist of Darline Graham, who — outside of backing her brother’s campaigns every now and then — was absent from the political circuit until his sudden death roughly a month ago.
“I don’t see it that way,” said Graham, a vocational rehabilitation administrator, in a clip shared by Aaron Rupar that’s accumulated 1.3 million views on X. “I’m not being handed this seat.”
That claim was swiftly deflated by a brutal community note on the platform that read, “She is literally being handed this seat.”
Graham was picked to fill her brother’s vacant seat by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) after President Donald Trump said that appointing her in the interim would be a “wonderful tribute” to his late friend.
Trump’s endorsement would later morph into a push for Graham to run for a full six-year term, a move that reportedly blindsided Republicans in South Carolina.
“We certainly empathize with Darline — and even the president, as Lindsey was a really good friend of his — but he’s certainly getting bad advice,” CJ Westfall, chair of the Dorchester County GOP, told CNN earlier this month.
“We’ve got a lot more exciting options for this seat. It’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
While Graham finished in first with 32.7% of the vote in Tuesday’s primary, she failed to secure a clear majority and is set to face Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) in a runoff later this month.
The winner of that contest will take on pediatrician Annie Andrews, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, in November’s general election.