Ralph Norman for U.S. Senate

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by WILL FOLKS

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Five months ago, I urged Republican primary voters in South Carolina to take advantage of a rare opportunity to “fundamentally reset the power paradigm in Washington, D.C.” by retiring U.S. senator Lindsey Graham.

I referred to Graham at the time as a “reckless, dangerous force for costly, unnecessary interventionism all over the world,” someone who “openly bragged” about being coached by Israel and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, on how to mire our nation in its current quagmire in Iran.

The ongoing Iran debacle, incidentally, has done nothing but exacerbate an affordability crisis at home – while giving our key geopolitical antagonists, China and Russia, the proxy war they’ve spent years longing for.

Meanwhile, our leaders blew at least $113.3 billion in money we don’t have on the first three months of the conflict… with nothing to show for it but a costly stalemate and a choked global energy artery.

Along with open borders, unsustainable deficit spending and rubber stamping far left judges (including a pair of Barack Obama‘s appointments to the U.S. supreme court) – that is Graham’s legacy.

He was a warmonger’s warmonger: someone who never missed an opportunity to shed other people’s blood and spend other people’s money on interminable, ill-conceived overseas entanglements.

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RELATED | OUST THE WARMONGER

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“Graham’s bloodlust for war has never been quenched… and we now learning it may well be unquenchable,” I noted at the time.

Now, Graham’s sister – former government bureaucrat Darline Graham Nordone – is campaigning for the seat vacated by her brother’s sudden death on July 11, 2026, vowing to carry on his legacy.

“I know he’s looking down right now, smiling,” Nordone told reporters after she finished first in a nine-candidate GOP special election on Tuesday evening (August 11, 2026).

If true, that’s a serious problem.

Nordone failed to capture a majority of votes in the special primary election, but by virtue of her first-place finish she has advanced to a runoff election on August 25, 2026 against U.S. congressman Ralph Norman – who finished second with support of 25% of the GOP electorate.

Nordone – who shed her married name last month as she embarked on her political career – is backed by U.S. president Donald Trump, a host of Washington, D.C. insider elites and a seemingly endless pile of special interest cash.

Just like her brother before her…

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And just like her late brother, Nordone has made it abundantly clear she will dutifully obey these special interest masters – no matter how many American lives or U.S. tax dollars it costs.

In a recent debate, the 62-year-old state government bureaucrat cemented her warmonger status when asked about an exit strategy for the war in Iran.

“We cannot allow terrorists to build nuclear missiles because they’re going to want to kill Americans,” Nordone said. “That’s just the sad truth. If they built nuclear missiles their goal is to come here and kill us – so the so the more we can fight them over there and prevent it over there the better for the United States.”

That was almost verbatim what the late John McCain told me in 2006 as he crisscrossed South Carolina seeking the Palmetto State’s Republican presidential nomination.

Well, McCain was wrong then… and Nordone is wrong now.

While Norman is hardly a dove, he holds a far more circumspect view of the situation in the Middle East – and a much greater appreciation for the inherent inefficacy of getting bogged down in a proxy war with China and Russia.

Obviously, Norman isn’t perfect. His voting record has holes in it – and no media outlet has more aggressively poked at those holes than mine (especially related to his support for the ill-fated Carolina Panthers‘ boondoggle back in 2019).

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Just last summer, in fact, I slammed Norman for supporting Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ – which has clearly failed to jumpstart the nation’s economy.

But here’s the thing: at least Norman has a record. And at least he’s willing to defend it – to stand on who he is and what he’s done and to take the criticism that come with making these difficult decisions. Also, on the whole, Norman’s record is far better than the vast majority of “Republicans” in Washington, D.C. – especially on the bread-and-butter tax and spending issues central to the survival of our nation.

In addition to receiving glowing scorecard results and A+ ratings from numerous conservative advocacy groups, Norman is a member of the Freedom Caucus – a group of principled lawmakers committed to the preservation of constitutional liberties and limited, accountable government.

Has the 73-year-old Rock Hill, S.C. developer perfectly ‘walked the walk’ as a citizen leader and taxpayer protector? Of course not… and in addition to the occasional misstep on those issues, he and I have strong disagreements on several hot-button social issues (including decriminalizing certain drugs and loosening South Carolina’s government monopoly on gaming).

But while Norman and I don’t see eye-to-eye on everything, I trust him to dig deep on the issues, ask the difficult questions, challenge the party insiders/entrenched interests in our nation’s capital and ultimately vote his conscience in the U.S. Senate.

Nordone? Not so much.

That’s the fundamental dividing line in this election: Nordone will vote how she’s told by the bureaucrats, globalists, lobbyists and party leaders – Norman will vote based on what he believes is best for our state. It’s a choice between a rubber stamp for Graham’s costly “neoconservative” legacy – and other failed ideas that have bankrupted our nation – or an actual conservative who has demonstrated the ability to think critically and vote independently.

For these reasons, I encourage South Carolina Republicans to cast their ballots in the upcoming runoff election for congressman Ralph Norman.

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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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