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Who could replace Lindsey Graham in the Senate after his sudden death?

▶ Watch Video: Latest on Lindsey Graham’s death as tributes pour in and sister picked to fill Senate seat

Washington — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sudden death late Saturday has set off a scramble for who will succeed him in the Senate, with a field of GOP candidates aiming to replace him in the November Senate election swiftly shaping up.

The late senator’s sister — Darline Graham — will serve for the remainder of his Senate term, ending in January 2027, after South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster named her to the role earlier this week.

But the Republican candidate in South Carolina’s Senate election later this year will be determined by a special primary election. Republicans who will vie for Graham’s Senate seat have one week — from July 21 to July 28 — to file to run, and a primary is set to take place Aug. 11. If no candidate secures a majority of the vote, a runoff will be held on Aug. 25. 

The winner will advance to the Nov. 3 general election, taking on Democrat Annie Andrews in the fight for a six-year term.

Graham, a giant in South Carolina politics who was seeking a fifth Senate term this year, died suddenly at the age of 71 Saturday. Preliminary findings from the District of Columbia’s medical examiner showed that the senator died of aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. He was among the Senate’s most influential members, and was known for his close relationships with President Trump and, before that, the late Sen. John McCain.

Here are the potential candidates to replace Graham: 

Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette 

Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette was among the crowded field of candidates for South Carolina governor and advanced to a runoff election in the race. But she fell short, losing to Attorney General Alan Wilson, who secured the GOP nomination for governor. The lieutenant governor had won President Trump’s endorsement in the GOP primary, though the president went on to back both her and Wilson in the runoff. 

Evette is the first woman to serve as lieutenant governor in South Carolina. Before she was elected to the role, Evette worked in the private sector, having founded the payroll management company Quality Business Solutions, Inc.

Evette has been inundated with calls and texts urging her to run for the now-open seat that was held by Graham, two GOP sources familiar with the discussions told CBS News. Asked whether she would consider a bid to replace Graham, Evette told CBS News on Monday that it was “disheartening” that the conversation had turned so quickly to politics after his passing. She added, “There’ll be a time for that.”

Rep. Russell Fry

Rep. Russell Fry is also being encouraged to run by South Carolina Republicans, two Republican sources told CBS News. 

Fry, who was elected to the House in 2022, represents a solidly Republican district, giving the GOP a strong chance of retaining his seat in the House in the November midterm elections. He previously served in South Carolina’s General Assembly.

Mr. Trump called Fry “outstanding” and “somebody you could watch out for” when asked about possible Graham successors in a Monday interview with Newsmax, though he added that there are “probably some others.”

Rep. Nancy Mace

Rep. Nancy Mace, who fell short in her bid for the governor’s mansion earlier this year, has also been floated as a possible candidate. Mace told CBS News on Sunday that she would “be remiss” if she didn’t “at least consider” a bid for the open Senate seat. 

Earlier Sunday, Mace posted on X a five-second clip from the movie “The Godfather Part III” that shows Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, declaring, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” 

Mace became the first Republican woman to represent South Carolina in Congress when she was elected in 2020. Since then, she’s made a name for herself as a GOP firebrand and was a leading figure in the fight for the Trump administration to release files from the federal investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

Her third term in the House expires early next year, after she opted for a gubernatorial bid instead of seeking reelection. She finished fifth in the Republican primary.

Mace previously sought a Senate seat, launching a bid against Graham in 2014. She came in fifth in that  GOP primary, too. 

Rep. Ralph Norman

Rep. Ralph Norman told reporters Monday he is considering a run for the Senate seat. He said he asked Mr. Trump for his endorsement, but Mr. Trump told him “It’s too early.”

Like Mace and Evette, Norman was a candidate in the Republican primary for governor. He placed third in the race, behind Evette and Wilson, securing 17% of the vote. He was backed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the gubernatorial race.

Norman supported Haley over Mr. Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.

Norman has represented South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District in the House since 2017 and is a member of the Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative lawmakers. Before he was elected to Congress, Norman served in the South Carolina House and was a real estate developer.

Former Rep. Trey Gowdy

South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott has talked up former Rep. Trey Gowdy, who served in the House from 2011 to 2019 and is best-known for chairing a committee that investigated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s response to the U.S. embassy attack in Benghazi, Libya.

“I have affinity for Trey Gowdy … and think he’d be an amazing senator for the state of South Carolina,” Scott said when asked by CBS News about potential Senate candidates.

Gowdy, who currently hosts a Fox News show, has not said publicly that he is interested in seeking elected office again.

Sen. Darline Graham

Darline Graham has not said whether she is interested in running for a full Senate term, but Scott hasn’t ruled out the idea, telling CBS News she’s “off to a remarkable start” and: “Why not her?”

Shortly after she was appointed, she said: “It is such a privilege to get to finish some of [Lindsey Graham’s] important work, and I promise to work hard over the next several months to support the president and carry forward the efforts of my brother on behalf of the citizens of South Carolina and the United States.”

Gov. Henry McMaster

Gov. Henry McMaster could also launch a bid for Graham’s Senate seat, should a so-called caretaker be appointed to fill the remainder of Graham’s term.

McMaster has been in the governor’s mansion since 2017, when he was appointed to finish out Haley’s term after she was confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during Mr. Trump’s first administration. McMaster was elected to a full term as governor in 2018, and then won reelection in 2022. 

McMaster’s term as governor is up in January. He has deep ties to South Carolina politics, having served as chairman of the state Republican Party for nearly a decade. McMaster was elected South Carolina’s attorney general in 2002, and then lieutenant governor in 2014.

Nikki Haley

A spokesperson for Haley told CBS News she is not planning to run for Graham’s Senate seat. Haley has been flooded with calls from people urging her to run, and multiple sources say there’s significant interest in seeing the former governor enter the race, but it’s not something she is “entertaining.”

Haley served as South Carolina governor for one and a half terms, before Mr. Trump named her ambassador to the United Nations at the start of his first term. Haley ran afoul of Mr. Trump during the 2024 GOP presidential primary, but she later endorsed the president.

“Nikki and Michael were shocked and saddened by the passing of Senator Graham. They will continue to lift his family up in prayer,” the spokesperson said. “While she has been blessed to serve her state and country as Governor, UN Ambassador, and as a candidate for President, she has no plans to run for office at this time.”

Trump’s address is likely to cast new cloud over midterm elections

(CNN) — President Donald Trump has passed up multiple chances to explain to Americans how his latest escalation will win the war in Iran or how he’ll alleviate their perpetually high costs for groceries, housing and fuel.Now he’s planning to anchor a national address Thursday evening on a personal fixation about the past — his false claim that he won the 2020 election.Critics fear this is all part of a quickening effort to buckle trust in voting systems and to create a pretext to use federal powers to sway November’s midterm elections. It would not be the first time that this president — who convention states should seek to bolster American democracy — has instead undermined it.“It doesn’t get bigger, because without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country,” the president said Wednesday as he previewed his speech. “We’ll be discussing other things too, but it’s going to be a very big announcement.”Trump’s rising drumbeat of warnings is broadening unease that he’s not just recycling claims about the 2020 election that were debunked by multiple courts, state Republicans and even his first-term administration. Trump, as he has in the past, seems to be building a fallback narrative if the Republican Party fares poorly in November and to portray any election that he doesn’t win, as, by definition, unfair.No one outside the White House knows what the president will say on Thursday. But there’s no credible sign yet that he has compelling new evidence of voter fraud that would contradict an overwhelming body of evidence that the 2020 election was fair or countless academic studies finding that major irregularities are very rare in US elections.But Trump’s speech may confirm a familiar pattern. In 2016, 2020, and 2024, as voting neared, he stepped up efforts to cast doubt on the fairness of elections. In 2020, this morphed into active election interference after he refused to concede to Joe Biden and sought to overturn the result without evidence. His campaign culminated in a riot by his supporters intended to thwart the certification of the president-elect’s win, during which police officers were beaten and the US Capitol was desecrated.In one of the first acts of his second term, Trump pardoned or commuted sentences for hundreds convicted in connection with January 6, 2021, sending a message that election violence or attempts to subvert democracy on his behalf were acceptable and above the law.Alarm bells are ringing again, partly because of the role of Trump’s interim director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, whom the president implied was sent to the top spy agency to find evidence about “rigged elections.” The FBI has meanwhile been investigating 2020 elections in Georgia, a state Trump lost, after seizing boxes of election materials. That election was deemed free and fair multiple times by GOP state officials following forensic audits.Nationwide, the administration has been demanding voter rolls, raising fears it intends to infringe the constitutional mandate that states, not the federal government, oversee elections. Trump is also making every domestic priority subordinate to his pressure on Republicans to pass the “SAVE America Act,” which, while containing reforms on requiring voter ID — which many citizens support — also threatens to make voting harder, curtail registration and narrow the franchise for minority voters. It could also give Trump more power to interfere in national elections.In the past, US intelligence agencies have concluded that foreign states and actors have tried to influence US elections. But pro-democracy groups fear that Trump’s team will use such evidence out of context to suggest there was active and successful interference to hurt Trump.Ben Berwick, who leads the Election Law and Litigation Team for Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group, expects the president to recycle his repeatedly debunked claims about the 2020 election on Wednesday evening. “I think there’s no doubt that a major piece of what is happening is really an intent to sow doubt about the 2026 election,” he said.Administration officials insist their only goal is to secure elections. “The work that we’re doing is to make sure that we have fair and honest elections,” Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Todd Blanche, said in his confirmation hearing Wednesday. Blanche said the goal is to ensure “that the only people voting are the people who are eligible to vote and that they’re only voting once.” Still, one reason some voters may be having doubts about the integrity of US democracy is that Trump and his supporters have spent so much time trashing it.Trump officials know the price for entry to his inner circle — accepting the false orthodoxy that he won in 2020. The latest official to dodge an unequivocal statement that Biden was rightfully elected was Jay Clayton, during his confirmation hearing Wednesday to be director of national intelligence. “I believe he had the most electoral votes,” Clayton said of Biden.When officials adopt such formulations they are ignoring facts and evidence, which raises questions about how they’d act if the president seeks again to overturn the result of a democratic election.The US government’s own election security agencies under the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council concluded during Trump’s first administration that the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”Republicans are frustrated Trump won’t speak about what matters to voters Trump’s refusal to move on infuriates many Republicans, even if most are loath to speak out publicly against a president who still commands the grassroots MAGA base. Republican Sen. John Cornyn, however, has a measure of freedom after losing his primary in Texas to a Trump-endorsed rival. “I, frankly, am more concerned about the upcoming midterm elections than I am … what happened in 2020, and obviously election integrity is very important. But I personally don’t see any point in relitigating an election that occurred six years ago,” Cornyn said.But Trump finds it impossible to drive a consistent electoral message. He rarely mounts an effective campaign around a domestic policy bill that handed many Americans higher tax refunds and temporarily reduced taxes on tips and overtime. Nor does he spend much time touting efforts to make prescription drugs more affordable through his TrumpRX website. When the White House schedules a trip to discuss affordability — the key 2026 election issue — Trump often deliberately ditches the script. He’d rather talk about his construction of an architectural legacy in the White House complex and around DC.Concern that he may seek an illegitimate way to boost Republicans in the midterms is also rising because a clutch of gathering political crises threaten to dampen Republicans’ prospects. The stakes are huge: If Democrats win back one chamber of Congress, they will have the power to subject the president’s second term and personal financial arrangements to unprecedented oversight.The unpopular Iran war is raging again, confounding Trump’s claims that he won it within days of its February launch and renewing the risk of soaring gasoline prices that anger voters. Several recent deaths linked to immigration raids by federal agents are reminding the country how much it dislikes one of Trump’s cornerstone policies. And while he mocks the idea that millions of Americans are struggling to afford the basics of daily life, he’s added $2 billion in personal wealth since returning to office.The latest polling reflects Trump’s worsening political position. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Sunday found 79% of respondents think US military involvement in the war will “go on for an extended period of time,” up from 65% in late March. A PBS/NPR/Marist poll in June found only 33% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. If immigration recaptures the headlines, that might also be bad news for Trump. A Marquette Law School poll in May showed voters had an unfavorable view of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency by 61%-36%.Why the 2020 election fixation may alienate voters Trump has made no secret of his admiration for strongman leaders. His opponents fear he may take a page from the playbook of authoritarians who erode democratic societies when their popularity wanes.Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat whose 2020 election has been the source of rumors on conservative media sites in relation to Trump’s speech, hit on this potential political motivation for Trump’s speech this week. “Privately, most elected Republicans in this building think the president has lost it and is dooming them to dismal losses this fall,” Ossoff told reporters Tuesday.Ossoff also had a heated exchange with Clayton over the administration’s new election probe in the hearing on Wednesday. His keenness to engage on this issue implies that he sees it as a losing one for his Trump-backed opponent. “Mike Collins launched his general election campaign doubling down on his 2020 election denials. Now he not only has to defend doubling health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians, he has to defend these conspiracy theories about the 2020 election that Georgia voters have rejected time and time again,” Ossoff said.On one level, Trump’s address may come to be seen as symptomatic of his tendency to pursue his own narrow interests in a second term that appears rather remote from the concerns of millions of voters.On another, it is likely to fuel fresh questions about how Trump would respond to another GOP electoral loss after spending years arguing his last defeat was illegitimate.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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