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by WILL FOLKS
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The first of what we suspect will be many surveys tied to South Carolina’s ongoing U.S. Senate succession drama dropped early Thursday (June 16, 2026)… and its results were anything but illuminative.
U.S. congressman Ralph Norman is the early frontrunner in the contest, per a new poll from Emerson College. However, nearly a fifth of the expected electorate is undecided – and the field is far from settled.
Perhaps most significantly, the king-making influence of U.S. president Donald Trump, long perceived as decisive in South Carolina GOP primary elections, continues to wane in this critical early-voting state.
To recap how we got here: South Carolina’s senior U.S. senator, hardcore neoconservative Lindsey Graham, died suddenly in his Washington, D.C. residence late Saturday (July 11, 2026), creating a vacancy that has been filled on an interim basis by his little sister, Darline Graham Nordone.
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Graham’s spot on the 2026 ballot, however, remains very much up in the air… with GOP voters set to go the polls on August 11, 2026 (and again on August 25, if necessary) to determine who will inherit the nomination he claimed on June 9, 2026 – just 32 days before his death. The stakes are high – both nationally and in South Carolina. Victory in this hastily called special primary election is tantamount to becoming U.S. senator-elect, as Democrats haven’t won a statewide race in twenty years – and haven’t won a U.S. Senate election since 1998.
Norman leads the initial field of prospective GOP candidates with the support of 16.4% of likely special primary voters, according to Emerson’s survey. Trailing him is Upstate evangelical firebrand Mark Lynch (13%), first district congresswoman Nancy Mace (10.1%), lieutenant governor Pamela Evette (9.9%), seventh district congressman Russell Fry (9%), status quo governor Henry McMaster (7.7%), Nordone (5.9%) and former S.C. governor Mark Sanford (5.4%).
Just under five percent of respondents indicated they were supporting someone else, while 17.9% were undecided.
“No candidate begins as a clear favorite among voters to replace the late Senator,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling.
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That’s true… although, as noted, the field for this seat is far from settled. Questions have been raised, for example, about Fry’s ability to run – and in the event he does run, more important questions have been raised about whether his candidacy could conceivably imperil the GOP’s tenuous majority in our nation’s capital.
Of particular interest in Emerson’s poll was the potential impact of Trump’s involvement in the race. While the president retains solid approval ratings in South Carolina (77.3% of primary voters view him favorably, including 56% who view him very favorably), that support does not translate into the ability to anoint a winner in this contest.
In fact, Trump’s endorsement – which was put through the ringer during the last election cycle – is weaker than ever.
According to the poll, an estimated 40.6% of GOP voters said Trump’s endorsement would make them “more likely” to support a candidate – however an identical 40.6% said it would make no difference in their decision. More surprisingly, 18.7% of respondents – nearly a fifth of the GOP electorate – said Trump’s imprimatur would make them “less likely” to support a candidate.
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Trump has had a rough year in early-voting South Carolina. Two months ago, Senate Republicans torpedoed his ill-conceived bid to redraw the Palmetto State’s congressional maps. And just last month, Evette – his top pick for governor of South Carolina – was getting absolutely thrashed by attorney general Alan Wilson in their head-to-head matchup, compelling Trump to hedge his bet and issue a belated, face-saving “co-endorsement” in the waning days of the race.
Emerson surveyed an estimated 500 likely GOP special primary voters between July 14-15, 2026. Its margin of error is plus or minus 4.3%. The survey was conducted exclusively using text-to-web surveys. As we noted in our recent recap of the 2026 primary and runoff elections, polls using live operators were far more accurate in projecting the outcome of races in the Palmetto State.
Keep it tuned to FITSNews as we expect to see a slew of these surveys over the coming weeks.
Filing for the special partisan primary opens at 12:00 p.m. EDT next Tuesday (July 21, 2026) and closes a week later (on July 28, 2026). The special primary will be held two weeks later – with a head-to-head runoff between the top two vote-getter two weeks after that in the event no candidate secures a majority on the first ballot.
Democrats are expected to challenge the legality of the election in court, incidentally, which means this entire process could wind up in federal court sooner rather than later.
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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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