South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham successfully avoided a runoff Tuesday as he seeks a fifth six-year term in the U.S. Senate, after spending at least $27 million to fend off primary opponents.

With 57 percent of the results in, Graham led his closest challenger, businessman Mark Lynch, 58 percent to 28 percent. None of the other four had received more than 5 percent of the ballots in the closed primary.

Graham, who is 70, now faces Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who won that party’s primary, in the November general election. No Democrat, however, has won a statewide office there in two decades.

Graham first ran for his Senate seat in 2002, when Democrat-turned-Dixiecrat-turned-Republican Strom Thurmond retired after 48 years in the upper chamber, then the record for the longest tenure. Graham, as he campaigned, joked that he wanted to make Thurmond the second-longest serving U.S. senator.

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