‘DRAG ON THE TICKET’

Nepo MAGA Senator’s Nightmare Deepens With Grim Downgrade

Insiders are pointing fingers as Darline Graham’s chances get bleaker by the day.

Republicans have hit the panic button as a Trump-backed senator’s chances of holding onto her late brother’s seat have been downgraded for the second time in weeks.

The Cook Political Report, which tracks campaigns and elections across the country, has shifted its analysis of the South Carolina Senate race from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.”

And GOP insiders have started pointing fingers as Sen. Darline Graham’s gaffe-filled campaign begins to derail even further.

“There’s no question that there’s a drag at the top of the ticket,” one told MS NOW on Wednesday.

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It comes as Trump is scheduled to host a rally in Clemson on Wednesday evening in a bid to shore up support. “I will be heading to South Carolina for a BIG Rally this evening,” he wrote in a Truth Social post earlier in the morning. “Darline Graham is GREAT!”

Republicans rallied around Graham, 62, after she stepped in to fill the seat vacated by Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death earlier this year.

But officials are now downbeat about her prospects after a series of blunders on the campaign trail, including admitting she knows virtually nothing about the foreign policy issues her brother made the centerpiece of his 34 years in office.

“There are voters who are voting third party, there are the voters who are voting elsewhere, and there doesn’t seem to be as much cohesion amongst the Republican electorate around her,” the insider told MS NOW.

Tuesday’s downgrade of Graham’s lead is the second time in as many months the Cook Report has shifted the seat away from the GOP in a state Trump, 80, carried by almost 18 percentage points over Kamala Harris in 2024.

Latest numbers suggest Graham is currently ahead of her Democratic opponent Annie Andrews by a polling average of only 2.7 percentage points just 12 days out from the Nov. 3 vote.

Graham has delivered some dismal debate performances, such as trying to blame Democrats for starting Trump’s war with Iran and failing to explain the U.S. strategic significance of Taiwan.

“I’m not that informed on national security,” she said during her primary run in August. “National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise.”

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It’s a stark departure from her late brother’s role as one of the foremost foreign policy hawks in D.C.

Lindsey Graham repeatedly lobbied for foreign military intervention, including demands for strikes against Iran years before Trump launched the current conflict, as well as a 2022 visit to Taiwan to champion support for the island against Chinese aggression.

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“It’s political malpractice that we’re even having to spend money in the state,” the GOP official said to MS NOW on Wednesday about the current senator’s chances of holding on to the seat.

“South Carolina should not be a state where we have to spend money to shore up a Republican nominee,” the official added. “That money is better used in other states, but we are here, and this is the cards that we have to play right now.”

Those concerns reflect a wider pattern driven by Trump’s plummeting approval ratings, which hit 31 percent on Monday, marking the lowest of either of his terms.

The downward spiral has turned once-safe Republican seats into increasingly competitive races as Democrats charge toward the November race for control of the House and Senate with an almost 9-point lead in those polls.

Trump has insisted that his supporters should imagine he is personally running for re-election, hoping it will drive higher turnout among the remaining MAGA faithful.

The Daily Beast has contacted Graham’s campaign for comment on this story.

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