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Harry Enten delivers good news for Trump after Darline Graham's major victory
CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten credited President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Darline Graham as the reason why she won the GOP primary race in South Carolina on Tuesday.
Graham, the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, won the GOP nomination to run for her brother’s Senate seat on Tuesday. While many critics said she lacked the necessary experience for the Senate, Enten said Trump’s endorsement of her helped carry her to the finish line.
He said that Trump’s endorsement matters when it comes to non-elected incumbents in the Senate.
“This is a reality check for you. That is, Donald Trump is still the sun on which the planets of the GOP revolve around,” Enten said on Wednesday.
He said since 2022, non-elected incumbents endorsed by Trump won their GOP primary race 95% of the time. In the 2026 election cycle, all of the incumbent candidates endorsed by Trump have won their respective primary races.
“If Trump endorsed a non-elected incumbent like Darline Graham, they in fact won the Republican primary for United States Senate,” Enten added. “Trump’s name is still the one that GOP voters buy when it comes to Senate endorsements.”
He said that Graham’s win was “probably the strongest sign of Donald Trump’s name being gold in Republican primaries to date.” Before his endorsement, she had just a 14% chance of winning on Kalshi’s prediction market.
“The reason why Darline Graham won that primary, won that nomination, is because of one name and one name only: Donald John Trump. This was his most impressive endorsement to date in terms of getting someone actually nominated because she basically stood no chance,” he said.
Enten also explained that Trump’s endorsement matters so much because he is the most admired GOP president among Republicans.
“The president Republicans most admire — it’s Donald Trump. This is a historic comparison. A majority of Republicans say — 53% say — he is the Republican president they most admire. Ronald Reagan, who traditionally has won that match, Donald Trump nearly triples up on this. Reagan at just 18%,” Enten said.
“And then Abraham Lincoln, who by most historic accounts is the greatest president of all time, but Republicans say that the president that they most admire by six, seven times as many is Donald John Trump at 53%. Easily crushing Abe Lincoln at 8%,” he said.