Prediction markets and political polling disagree on how close South Carolina’s Republican Senate runoff will be.
Polling shows that the late Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline, is trailing or is in a neck-and-neck race against Ralph Norman, but Kalshi still gives the Trump-endorsed candidate a 70 percent chance of winning as of Tuesday afternoon—hours before polls close.
That marks a three percent increase from Monday night, when she was at 67 percent.
Similarly, the prediction market Polymarket gave Graham a 65 percent chance of winning the runoff as of Tuesday afternoon.
Political polls believe Tuesday’s run-off will be much closer.
A Trafalgar Group poll released late Monday showed Graham, 62, and Norman, 73, deadlocked at 48 percent each with just four percent of likely South Carolina voters still undecided. The poll had a 2.9 percent margin of error.
A separate survey shared with NOTUS by pollsters “who support Norman” found that he has a high-single-digit lead over Graham—but details on how many likely voters were surveyed were not made public.
A lack of neutral polling in the race has “left many Republicans to go off of vibes,” the site wrote. If Kalshi is any indicator, those vibes are favoring Graham, despite her losing momentum after a shaky debate performance that forced her to admit, “National security is not my thing.”
That came after Graham flubbed a question about whether Taiwan and the South China Sea are key national security issues for the United States. Some in the crowd booed her for not even attempting an answer.
Graham said that she is just “not that informed on national security.” Her late brother, meanwhile, was a prominent national security and foreign policy hawk in his 23 years as a senator.
President Donald Trump has endorsed Graham and has gone to great lengths to prop her up. He even traveled to South Carolina to stump for Graham, and his MAGA Inc. super PAC has pumped $827,000 in support of the incumbent, who was sworn in on July 14 with his blessing.
