by WILL FOLKS
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U.S. president Donald Trump is staring down another potential humiliation in early-voting South Carolina, a state where he has struggled mightily to accomplish his political ends in recent months.
In May, Trump tried to strong-arm the Republican-controlled S.C. Senate into approving his preferred maps for the state’s congressional districts.
In June, Trump tried to convince South Carolina Republican primary voters to select charisma-challenged lieutenant governor Pamela Evette as their next chief executive.
That bombed, too.
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In fact, the ham-fisted dispensing of his imprimatur was so poorly received by Palmetto GOP primary voters that Trump eventually had to hedge his bet and belatedly “co-endorse” the eventual landslide winner, attorney general Alan Wilson.
Last week, Trump announced he would be giving interim U.S. senator Darline Graham Nordone his “complete and total endorsement” should she enter a special primary election to replace her late brother, Lindsey Graham, on the November ballot.
On Monday, Nordone obliged.
Early reaction to Trump’s latest attempt to play queenmaker has been resoundingly negative – but the real danger to Nordone’s candidacy lies in whether she’s even eligible to file for the ballot.
Last month, the S.C. Republican Party (SCGOP) adopted a new rule which held that candidates seeking the party’s nod for any office must have cast ballots in two of the past three GOP primary elections.
Nordone voted in the 2026 GOP primary election, but did not vote in either its 2022 or 2024 primary elections. She did, however, cast a ballot in the 2024 GOP runoff in Lexington County – which her supporters have argued qualifies her for the ballot under the new SCGOP rule, which became effective on July 1, 2026.
The text of the rule makes no mention of runoffs, however – something Nordone detractors believe is disqualifying.
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RELATED | DARLINE GRAHAM NORDONE WILL SEEK FULL TERM
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On Monday (July 20, 2026), Dorchester County GOP chairman CJ Westfall issued a statement requesting a “formal review” of her qualifications for the ballot by the SCGOP executive committee.
“The rules appear to require consideration of a waiver before she can be certified,” Westfall wrote. “Accordingly, I have requested a formal review of her qualifications prior to the July 28 certification deadline and, if necessary, that the matter be presented to the State Executive Committee.”
“This request is not intended to hurt or harm Mrs. Nordone,” Westfall added. “She has endured more this week than most people experience in a lifetime, and our prayers remain with her and the entire Graham family. This is about one principle only: the rules adopted by the delegates of the South Carolina Republican Party should be applied consistently and fairly to every Republican candidate. Equal application of our rules protects both the integrity of our nomination process and the confidence Republican voters place in it.”
Westfall is correct.
While we believe Nordone’s 2024 runoff vote qualifies as participation in that year’s primary process – thus making her eligible to run for office under the new rule – the strict language of the party resolution said “primary.” And Nordone definitively did not vote in the 2024 GOP primary.
So there is a credible case to be made to keep her off the ballot…
Given Trump’s support for Nordone, though, SCGOP leaders are likely to extend a waiver to her in the event she is deemed ineligible under the new rule – although, as Westfall noted, such a favor has the potential to de-legitimize the new rule just weeks after it was put in place.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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2 comments
The new GOP rule to close the party’s primary elections was a mistake. Governor McMaster was correct in his assessment that closed party primaries don’t serve the long term interests of the GOP. That’s especially true by limiting the field to candidates who“participated in two of the last three party primaries”. Such a retrospective rule is especially unfair to Nordone who should have every right to run for her late brother’s Senate seat. The GOPs shortsighted requirement will now potentially disqualify Senator Graham’s own sister who now has President Trump’s “full and unconditional endorsement”. This new GOP rule also leaves conservative independent voters homeless.
It doesn’t make any difference, every GQP candidate’s head is so far up Trump’s ass they are licking his tonsils.
The humiliation isn’t Trump’s, he wins no matter what. The humiliation is for all these candidates who have to play along with this demented delusional felon-in-chief and pretend things like high gas prices and grocery costs are not singlehandedly caused by Big Daddy.