South Carolina Senate race heads to runoff today

South Carolina Republicans will decide Tuesday who will replace Sen. Lindsey Graham on the ballot in November's midterm election, after a rushed campaign in the wake of his sudden death in July.

Graham's sister, Sen. Darline Graham , faces Rep. Ralph Norman in Tuesday's runoff vote. The two candidates were the top two vote-getters in the special primary election on Aug. 11. Darline Graham was appointed to serve out the remainder of her late brother's term, which ends early next year. Lindsey Graham had been running for his fifth term when he died and had just won the Republican primary in June.

Darline Graham, who has no prior experience in elected office, has focused on domestic issues during the abbreviated campaign. Going into Tuesday's runoff, her lack of preparedness in foreign policy has raised some questions about her candidacy for the full term.

In a debate last week, she stumbled on a question about Taiwan and the South China Sea. Graham said she's "not that informed on national security," unlike her late brother, an outspoken foreign policy hawk.

"I'm not a polished politician," Graham said. "National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military."

Asked at a news conference whether she'd taken a closer look at the issue of Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific since the debate, she told reporters she had traveled around the state to talk with as many voters as she could.

"You know how many of them brought up Taiwan or national security? Not one," she said, adding that they were talking about "the rising cost of health care and affordability, so that's what's important to me."

But when CBS News' Ed O'Keefe later asked Graham whether she planned to bring up a specific proposal or legislation on those issues, she offered no plan, responding that we'll deal with that "when I get there." Graham, however is already in the Senate and has been serving for about six weeks.

The winner of Tuesday's runoff will take on Dr. Annie Andrews, who won the Democratic primary in June. Although the South Carolina Senate race is usually a fundraising boon to Democrats, the state remains solidly Republican and has just one Democratic representative in Congress.

President Trump, who had been close to Lindsey Graham, has thrown his support behind Darline Graham. He campaigned for her in South Carolina last week and held a tele-rally for her on Monday. And the Trump super PAC MAGA Inc surged $827,000 into her campaign for text messages and phone calls on her behalf, according to Federal Election Commission records . Until Darline Graham's Senate bid, MAGA Inc had spent only about $18,000 in 2026 on a midterm race. The super PAC spent about $1.7 million last year and by the end of the second quarter, it had raised $401 million.

Darline Graham has also garnered the support of South Carolina's other senator, GOP Sen. Tim Scott, who said after her first few weeks in the Senate and her first-place finish in the primary that he's "confident she's the real deal."

The newly minted senator has billed herself as "a problem solver, a critical thinker, and a leader," with decades of experience working for South Carolina .