For MAGA-loving Republicans, South Carolina is shaping up to be an ideological battleground. In one corner stands President Donald Trump with his hopes of keeping or growing the GOP majority. In the other is the keen desire to purge the party of deeply unliked incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). While the prospective conflict is unlikely to seriously affect the popularity of the man GOP voters returned to the White House with a rousing mandate, it highlights the problems that come when cold political calculation rubs up against core ideological values.
Graham has held his Senate seat since January 2003. The former sidekick of deceased Trump arch-nemesis Sen. John McCain has somehow managed to make an extremely workable peace with the president while still clinging fervently to the neoconservative foreign policy and DC establishment-narrative practices that so infuriate America First backers. It’s fair to say that, after Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), there is no Republican senator many Trump supporters would like to see hurled out of Washington more than Graham (though he does have some stout competition on that score).
Oddly Early Graham Man
The rub is that Trump has already made it clear he is with his unusual ally as he seeks re-election to a fifth six-year term in 2026. “He’s a great guy and he’s running for office and I’m going to endorse him,” Trump revealed on February 7. That he would say as much so early in the process is puzzling.
Trump obviously is concerned with keeping the Senate red in the mid-term elections, and the heavy power of incumbency plays a key factor in that determination. For his base of supporters, however, this is a source of endless frustration. Why not allow for a brisk primary to play out before weighing in?
Trump has done this before. During the 2020 election cycle, he endorsed Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) in June of the preceding year, despite Tillis having just spent four-plus years avidly opposing most of his MAGA agenda from his Republican Senate perch. For reformist Trump voters, a GOP obstructionist in office can be more exasperating than a declared-foe Democrat. But the North Carolina Senate race was very much up for grabs in 2020, and incumbent Tillis was seen by Trump as the best option for holding the seat.
That turned out not to be true. Tillis was on his way to apparent inevitable defeat to Democrat Cal Cunningham before his opponent was caught up in an October Surprise sex scandal that allowed him to limp his way to a thoroughly underwhelming victory. Tillis then promptly returned to his anti-Trump machinations, alienating anti-establishment conservatives to such a degree that in 2023, delegates at the North Carolina Republican convention voted to censure him. No sitting GOP senator is more vulnerable in 2026.
The argument for Trump holding back and allowing a primary scuffle to take place in South Carolina is more compelling. The state is more reliably red than North Carolina, and with Trump surging and Democrats reeling after the 2024 election, Republicans there should feel very good about holding onto the seat even without Graham’s name recognition in a general election.
And there will be a challenge.
‘He Is Not One of Us’
Greenville businessman Mark Lynch announced on February 5 that he is jumping into the fray, peppering his announcement with frequent jabs against Graham in language tailor-made to appeal to Trump’s MAGA base.
“South Carolinians deserve a God-fearing, conservative businessman to fight alongside President Trump against the powers of evil that have such a tight grip on career politicians,” Lynch exclaimed, The Spartanburg Herald-Journal reports.
“He is not one of us,” Lynch said about Graham. “The people have raised their voices to bring me into this race, and I’m answering their call.” Accusing him of “working for the enemy,” Lynch cited Graham’s embracing of anti-Trump establishment party lines such as January 6 and the Russia hoax as well as his history of backing illegal alien amnesty-flavored “immigration reform,” endless wars abroad, and gun control measures.
After more than two decades of enduring this from an alleged conservative Republican in the US Senate, numerous South Carolina GOP voters are itching to hit the eject button. Why, then, is Trump determined to align himself with a man who embodies the image of Swamp hanger-on to most of his supporters while offering no convincing argument to keep sending him back to Capitol Hill other than the fact that he’s already there and has been for some time?
While Trump is more popular than ever both within the party and among non-Republicans in South Carolina and throughout America, there is no reason to believe his GOP backers in the Palmetto State will stand down at his urging and allow Lindsey Graham to coast through yet another primary. They may hold their noses and pull a lever for him in a general election should it come to that. But why would they accede to such an off-putting scenario when it can be avoided?
Mark Lynch won’t be the only aspirant to Graham’s tottering chair. A lively contest is slowly coagulating more than 18 months in advance. And the long shadow of a towering President Trump won’t be enough to hide Lindsey Graham from the wrath of angry South Carolina Republican voters in 2026.
