Ralph Norman

COLUMBIA — Looking at a color-coded map, one didn’t even need labels to understand how S.C. Republicans voted in the opening round of a special primary to replace the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The senator’s sister and sitting U.S. Sen. Darline Graham appeared to carry most of South Carolina, corresponding with the 33 percent of votes cast statewide that helped her clinch the position of front-runner heading into the Aug. 25 runoff.

U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, a party hardliner from Rock Hill, convincingly carried the counties making up his House district along the border with Charlotte, as well as the ruby-red, densely populated counties of the Upstate to make the runoff with just under a quarter of the vote.

Norman’s popularity with evangelical voters helped him edge out third-place finisher Russell Fry, the 41-year-old congressman from Myrtle Beach who had strong support in his home base in the Grand Strand and Pee Dee. Fry took more than 50 percent of the vote in Dillon, Florence and Marion counties, helping him make up for his relatively anemic performance further inland.

Former Gov. Mark Sanford, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found — even losing an early-evening lead to Graham on his way to a second-place finish among his neighbors in Charleston County, which he once represented in Congress.

Here are some takeaways from the Aug. 11 election:

Graham ‘won’ the runoff, but not overwhelmingly

Running as an incumbent, Graham overperformed early polling projections of around 27 percent by about five points.

She won the lion’s share of South Carolina’s 46 counties, carrying both the Midlands and Lowcountry, as well as a majority of counties on the western edge of the state. She also beat Norman by four points in Lancaster County, which is part of his congressional district. (Norman notably tied with Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette for an equal share of the vote there in the Republican primary for governor in June.)

While Graham secured a plurality of the vote in 28 counties, she failed to dominate anywhere and finished with less than 50 percent of the vote in every county she won. Her best results came in Bamberg and Orangeburg counties, where she finished with 49 percent of the vote in each.

Still, Graham has a chance to expand that base. She has the support of President Donald Trump, who she hopes will come to South Carolina ahead of the runoff to campaign with her. She also now has the formal backing of fellow South Carolinian and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee and had previously remained sidelined in the race.

“If I were going to endorse in the South Carolina GOP Senate primary, I wanted to do so with confidence,” Scott wrote on social media Aug. 12. “After watching Darline Graham in the Senate and on the campaign trail, I’m confident she’s the real deal.”

Norman consolidates conservative vote, but questions linger

South Carolina’s Upstate is both heavily populated and fiercely conservative. It also was considered unfriendly territory for Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly on July 11 from a torn aorta.

In the June 9 GOP primary, businessman Mark Lynch earned 44 percent of the vote in Greenville and 43 percent in Spartanburg — representing the only counties Graham lost in his last re-election bid.

Lynch earned about 6 percent of the vote in the Aug. 11 redux, finishing fifth in a field of 10 candidates.

But the region wasn’t guaranteed for anyone.

In the competitive six-way GOP primary for governor, Norman, Evette and eventual winner Attorney General Alan Wilson carried almost identical shares of the vote in Greenville County. In Spartanburg County, four candidates earned more than 20 percent of the vote.

In the Aug. 11 special primary, Norman led Graham by double-digit percentages in both counties.

“Our voters up here are a very talk-radio conservative crowd, and Senator (Lindsey) Graham has been the person that talk radio has loved to hate for many, many years,” said Nate Leupp, a conservative strategist from Greenville who will host a candidate forum in the Upstate on Aug. 17. “Darline just automatically won that transition because of her name.”

But that’s just the Upstate, paired with Norman’s home counties. To win the runoff and earn the party’s nomination, Norman will now have to compete on the coast and in the Midlands — places he saw some of his weakest performances in the governor’s race and again on Aug. 11, according to state elections data.

The turnout factor

With just under 335,000 ballots cast and 11 percent turnout, the overall vote was less than other historic elections.

An uncompetitive Republican primary for governor between Gov. Henry McMaster and Harrison Musselwhite drew more than 30,000 additional participants than the Aug. 11 election. Lindsey Graham’s four-way primary win in 2020 saw more than 469,000 votes cast.

While the special Senate primary did exceed the 319,000 votes cast in this year’s Republican runoff for governor, it fell well short of the 473,000 votes cast in the initial primary for that election, where Republican turnout was around 25 percent.

How that vote holds up, and where it holds up, will be critical for both Norman and Graham in two weeks. Despite making the runoff, Norman earned just 2,000 more votes than he did in the June primary for the governor nomination despite the depleted turnout, suggesting a dedicated — but limited — base of support he needs to expand by Aug. 25.

Graham will need to do the same, all while attempting to tamp down Norman’s attractiveness among the 42 percent of voters in Aug. 12’s election who backed other candidates. Her strong showing on Fry’s home turf, where she consistently earned 25 to 35 percent of the vote, arguably helped thwart Fry’s chances to make the runoff, which he missed by less than 17,000 votes.