Nepo Sister Barely Clinches Runoff Despite Trump Backing

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images Senator Darline Graham pulled off a victory in the South Carolina Republican runoff on Tuesday after Donald Trump went all in to avoid a humiliating loss.

Around 9 p.m., Graham was projected to win by several news organizations, including The Associated Press and NBC News.

Trump posted a congratulatory message on Truth Social at 8:44 p.m., declaring, “Darline Graham Wins! Endorsed by President Trump.

As of 9:07 p.m., with 91 percent of votes in, Graham has 52.4 percent of the votes, while Ralph Norman has 47.6 percent.

In the end, South Carolina Republicans chose the sister of late Senator Lindsey Graham as their Senate nominee despite concerns about her lack of qualifications for the job.

She will face Democratic nominee Dr.

Annie Andrews in November in what is considered a red state, but early polling on a hypothetical matchup has shown the race tightening for the open seat.

The president pushed the 62-year-old to run for a full six-year term despite her having zero experience in elected office.

She was appointed to the job after her brother died suddenly last month.

While Graham has decades of expeience in state government, her lack of experience running for office showed almost immediately on the campaign trail with a series of embarrassing stumbles in response to questions about policy and claims she did not have a position on issues yet.

Speaking on the debate stage for the runoff last week, Graham said “national security is not my thing” when asked about Taiwan and the South China Sea.

On Monday, when asked how she was getting caught up on the issue of national security over the past week, Graham instead said she had been going around the state and not one person she has spoken to had brought up national security or Taiwan.

While Graham said people are instead talking about affordabilty, when questioned about what legislation she would put forward to help, the senator who was sworn into office six weeks ago said “we’ll see when I get there.” Her series of nonanswers frustrated some Republicans who argued representing South Carolina in the Senate should not come down to nepotism.

But Trump went all in to help her.