Three days after Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death, his sister, Darline Graham, was sworn in to complete the remainder of the South Carolina Republican’s term. With President Donald Trump’s encouragement, she quickly declared she’d seek a full six-year term.

Yet the limited polling available suggests Tuesday’s snap special election primary to replace Lindsey Graham on the November ballot remains fluid. The race features several well-known Republicans, including Reps. Russell Fry and Ralph Norman and former Gov. Mark Sanford, who also served in the House. 

The 10-candidate field also includes businessman Mark Lynch — an “America First” insurgent in the mold of Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie — who finished second to Lindsey Graham in the regular June primary. The number of contenders makes a runoff — scheduled for Aug. 25 – more likely since it will be harder for any candidate to clear 50 percent of the vote Tuesday.

One Republican strategist said Graham, Norman and Fry enjoy an advantage because they each have an existing political apparatus to lean on. 

Norman is just coming off a competitive race for governor, in which he finished third in the June Republican primary. Fry is  running for reelection to the House while also seeking the Senate seat. Graham inherited her brother’s federal leadership PAC, his Senate committee assignments and some of his staff. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is running ads on her behalf.

CQ Roll Call photo editor Bill Clark was in the Palmetto State recently to catch some of the Senate hopefuls on the stump. Here’s a look at the leading candidates. 

Darline Graham 

Before Gov. Henry McMaster appointed her to fill out the rest of her late brother’s term, Darline Graham had a limited political record. She spent years working in state government jobs, serving  as the head of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, which assists blind and low-vision residents with job training and other programs. She also spent years as director of public information for the South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Department.

Graham was close to her older brother, who legally adopted her after their parents’ death. She has sought to balance preserving his legacy with a desire to put her own stamp on the job, telling Fox News last month that she used to encourage her brother to use his national TV appearances to “talk about what matters to the average person.”

“I’m different from most politicians,” she said at a debate in Columbia last week. “We all know why I’m here. I actually think it’s part of God’s plan.”

Ralph Norman

Norman, a wealthy real estate developer, first came to Congress in 2017 after narrowly winning a special election to succeed Republican Mick Mulvaney, who resigned to become Trump’s White House budget director. It wasn’t Norman’s first run for Congress, though — he lost a bid for the 5th District in north-central South Carolina in 2006.

A member of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, he’s had no trouble winning reelection since. Norman was one of just two House members to back former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley during the 2024 Republican presidential primaries. He endorsed Trump after Haley dropped out of the race. 

Norman was part of a crowded Republican gubernatorial primary this year but missed out on the runoff after finishing third in June. 

In the current race, Norman, like the other high-profile hopefuls, has positioned himself as a strong backer of Trump’s agenda, even though he did not receive the president’s formal endorsement.

“The America First agenda is: Secure the border, cut the taxes, make sure our military is peace through strength,’’ Norman said at the Columbia debate.

Russell Fry

An attorney and former state legislator, Fry was first elected to the deep-red 7th District in 2022 after ousting Republican Rep. Tom Rice in the primary with Trump’s support. Rice had angered Trump after voting to impeach him in 2021 over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Fry emphasized his experience during last week’s debate. Without directly mentioning Darline Graham, he called himself “battle-tested in getting results,’’ and pointed out that he “didn’t inherit a record.”

He has also attacked the appointed senator on a number of issues, including accusing her of backing diversity, equity and inclusion measures in her previous position, a charge she rejects. Meanwhile a super PAC backing the incumbent is running an ad showing an AI-generated image of Trump wielding a sizzling pan containing Fry’s face on a piece of meat.

Mark Sanford

Sanford, who served two separate stints in the House representing the coastal 1st District, briefly ran for his old seat this year before dropping out to establish a nonprofit focused on the national debt. 

Reining in government spending is the focal point of his current run for Senate as well. “Our country is at a financial tipping point,’’ he said at a candidate forum Saturday in Florence. “We’re walking our way toward the most predictable financial crisis in the history of man, and yet we’re not even really talking about it.”

Sanford was first elected to Congress in the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994. He later served two terms as South Carolina governor, gaining national notoriety in 2009 following revelations that he secretly traveled to Argentina to meet a woman with whom he’d been having an affair. Sanford’s office initially said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

He returned to the House after winning a special election in 2013. A frequent critic of the Trump administration’s policies on spending and foreign policy, Sanford was ousted five years later by a primary challenger backed by the president. He also briefly challenged Trump in the 2020 Republican presidential primary. 

Other Republican candidates

Of the remaining five candidates, the most prominent is Lynch, a businessman who took 29 percent of the vote against Lindsey Graham in the June primary. In that race, Lynch had the backing of several former Trump associates, including Joe Kent, the onetime director of the National Counterterrorism Center, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. But Trump, in an April social media post, referred to Lynch as a “LUNATIC” who would be “a DISASTER for the Republican Party.”

During the debate, Lynch affirmed his support for Trump and amplified the president’s false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election.

Also running are former Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride, attorney and former House candidate Duke Buckner, engineer Samuel Shepherd, former Virginia candidate Glenda Gail Parker and former agriculture commissioner candidate Danny Ford II, the eponymously named son of the legendary former Clemson football coach. 

Annie Andrews

Waiting in the wings for the Republican nominee in November is pediatrician Annie Andrews, who won the Democratic nomination in June. 

Andrews, who lost a bid for the House in 2022, has been a strong fundraiser, ending June with $4.1 million in the bank. But she faces tough odds in a state that last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 1998.  

Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Likely Republican.