Darline Graham

One week after losing the Republican primary runoff against Darline Graham for a full term to her late brother’s Senate seat, U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman is distancing himself from comments he made suggesting voters cast his name in the general election.

“Vote for Ralph Norman,” he said Aug. 31 during a press gaggle on Capitol Hill, in answer to a reporter’s question about what he would tell an undecided South Carolina voter ahead of November.

However, on Sept. 2, Norman’s office walked back the suggestion, saying Norman had misheard the question and reiterated the support he offered Graham’s election bid during his concession speech Aug. 25.

“His remarks the other day were misconstrued after he could not hear the reporter’s question,” a Norman spokesperson told The Post and Courier about the exchange as depicted on C-SPAN. “He is not campaigning as a write-in candidate.”

The original comment took wind on social media and raised questions about whether a write-in campaign would even be legal.

South Carolina law allows for candidates to have their name put on a ballot by petition — but with the stipulation that “a person who was defeated as a candidate for nomination to an office in a party primary or party convention must not have his name placed on the ballot for the ensuing general or special election.”

There is an exception if a nominated candidate dies, withdraws, is disqualified or otherwise ceases to be the nominee, according to state election code.

The clarification comes after Norman has spent the week since his defeat airing grievances over President Donald Trump’s heavy involvement in endorsing Graham, whom Gov. Henry McMaster appointed to serve out the final months of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s term after the senator’s sudden death on July 12.

At Trump’s insistence, Darline Graham put her name in a special election for the full term, and she was nominated in a runoff with Norman with 52 percent of the vote and millions of dollars of PAC money spent against him. She is now set to face Democrat Annie Andrews, a Charleston pediatrician, in the general election.

“I still don't get it why he did that. Ronald Reagan would never do that, to come in and fracture a party,” Norman said Sept. 1 on the Upstate’s “Charlie James” conservative talk radio show. The comments followed Norman’s election night critique of Graham and the president’s involvement.

In a social media post the day after the special election, Trump said Norman “ruined his career when he endorsed Nikki Haley” in her 2024 presidential run against him. In turn, Haley endorsed Norman in the Senate race.

“The way she got there, I've got a problem with, but it's over with,” Norman said in his Sept. 1 radio appearance. “The toothpaste is out of the tube, and you can't put it back in.”

The Senate run was Norman’s second failed campaign after he lost his bid for governor in the June primary.