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by WILL FOLKS
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South Carolina businessman Mark Lynch was the first to formally announce his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the sudden death of the late Lindsey Graham – and the first to file his paperwork to seek the office. Lynch is also the only member of the ten-candidate field who ran against Graham in the GOP primary earlier this year – drawing 28.89% of the vote against the veteran incumbent on June 9, 2026.
Will any of those advantages help him in the special primary election scheduled for this coming Tuesday (August 11, 2026)? Pre-election polling suggests the answer to that question is “no,” with Lynch currently ensconced in fourth or fifth place in the race to succeed Graham on the November 2026 GOP ballot.
That’s not deterring him one bit, though.
“We’re willing to do it like our forefathers did when they signed the Declaration of Independence,” Lynch said in an interview with FITSNews. “This is sacrifice. John Hancock wrote his name real big so he would have no worry that the King didn’t see his name on that death sentence. I love America. I love my family. I love South Carolina. I’m a lifelong South Carolinian. We’re putting it all in.”
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According to Lynch, the difference in this election cycle has been his ability able to get his message out to voters through the debate process – something that didn’t happen in his race against Graham.
“I don’t know if this is God’s providence or not, but I know after the two debates we’ve had, everybody got to hear me speak against all the career politicians that talk the same way,” Lynch said. “All of them, they just talk around stuff. They don’t have any real solutions. They don’t have real passion or fight in them.”
According to Lynch, “the war is at home” – and he is the only true America-first candidate in the race.
“Lindsey was starting wars everywhere,” he said. “We ignored the homeland.”
“We’re infiltrated to the hilt,” Lynch added, arguing Islamic terrorists and jihadists are conspiring to destroy America from within.
Lynch made it clear he would rather do battle with those domestic enemies than fight a war in Iran.
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“It’s time to bring our troops home,” he said. “Get out of there. Cut the expense off. We don’t have the money to be in that kind of a war. We need to be America first. We can’t go and support everybody else’s military operations and fund that for them – when we’re bankrupt, when we’re $39 trillion in debt.”
According to Lynch, “we’ve got to get our debt down because we’re going to put ourselves out of business over here at war with ourselves with overspending.”
“That’s the biggest problem with the inflation and the affordability crisis that South Carolinians and Americans Americans are facing across the country,” he said.
While the polls are not in Lynch’s favor, he maintains a populist groundswell is building that can carry him to victory.
“I’m endorsed by the right people in the country, the real fighters, and I’m endorsed by the people,” Lynch concluded. “And so we, the people, I hope will exercise their authority and their rights to bring term limits to these career politicians this time with their vote next Tuesday.”
Lynch is running against seventh district congressman Russell Fry, fifth district congressman Ralph Norman, former S.C. governor Mark Sanford, Walterboro, S.C. attorney Duke Buckner, former Myrtle Beach, S.C. mayor Mark Struthers McBride and Graham’s sister, interim U.S. senator Darline Graham Nordone, for this seat.
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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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