MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. ― President Donald Trump’s choice to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate following the sudden death of her brother, Lindsey Graham, met her remaining opponent Tuesday in the first and likely only one-on-one debate before next week’s runoff election.

“I’ve got a proven record, folks. You can look me up for eight years. I’ve been in Congress. I’m the most conservative member. You know how I’m going to vote. My resume is my record,” said Ralph Norman, a congressman from the more conservative northern part of the state, before getting to the heart of his case. “We have an unknown candidate who I am running against.”

Darline Graham, who is 62 and never held or even sought elected office before the death of her brother on July 11, quickly went to her strongest argument just seconds into her opening statement: “I want to thank President Trump for his endorsement.”

Both candidates repeated familiar right-wing tropes and conspiracy theories without any fact-checking: that Trump’s “DOGE” group had found hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud, and Anthony Fauci should be in prison for his role in inventing the COVID virus. The debate was staged in Newberry, near the state’s capital city Columbia, and broadcast by Newsmax, a pro-Trump news outlet, and sanctioned by the South Carolina Republican Party.

At one point, Norman, who incurred Trump’s wrath by endorsing former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for president in 2024 rather than Trump, came close to criticizing the president by suggesting he needed to explain what was actually happening with his Iran war.

“He’s going to have to tell the American people what’s it going to take, if the Straits of Hormuz are still dominated by a country that’s supposed to be decimated,” he said.

Trump is more heavily invested in the Senate race than he was in the South Carolina governor’s race, in which he endorsed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette heading into the primary only to abandon her when she was barely ahead of state Attorney General Alan Wilson. Trump “co-endorsed” both for the runoff and quickly took credit when Wilson won.

In this race, however, Trump did not merely endorse Darline Graham but encouraged her to run for a full six-year term after initially getting her appointed just to serve out the remainder of her brother’s current term, which ends in January.

Trump is planning to come to South Carolina on Friday to stage a rally for Graham in Myrtle Beach, the home of U.S. Rep. Russell Fry, who finished third in last week’s special primary election to choose a GOP nominee to replace Lindsey Graham on the November ballot.

Darline Graham won, but received just under a third of the vote in the crowded field, with Norman getting 25%. Fry, at Trump’s urging, has endorsed Darline Graham. To defeat Norman, she will likely need to pick up many of Fry’s supporters in the Aug. 25 runoff.

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