by MARK POWELL
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It’s the final seconds of the fourth quarter. The big game is almost over, and it could go either way. The team is down, but not out. With time running out, there’s one last play to call: a Hail Mary.
And so President Donald Trump came to Rock Hill at midday on Thursday (October 29, 2026) to rally support for interim U.S. Sen. Darline Graham Nordone’s flailing campaign… again. But will that desperate play be the last-minute miracle she needs to clinch victory next Tuesday?
Trump made his third Palmetto State visit in ten weeks on Thursday – and his second in as many weeks. He campaigned for Nordone in Myrtle Beach on August 21, returned for a GOP rally promoting her at Clemson on October 21, and then dropped in yet again on Rock Hill. Even for a president who loves being on that campaign trail, that’s some concentrated high-level firepower for just one candidate in one state.
“There may be a select handful of other GOP candidates who’ve received that degree of presidential concierge service this cycle, but they are few and far between,” a national GOP political strategist unaffiliated with any current South Carolina race told us.
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Another Washington wag put it this way: “Trump has been to South Carolina so often lately he probably earns frequent flier miles. Air Force One must have the flight path programmed on autopilot by now.”
While such presidential attention in such a short time is extraordinary, veteran campaign observers say two other things are also perplexing. First, that Trump made no new pitch or argument to win over 11th-hour converts to Nordone’s campaign, and secondly, it was almost an exact carbon copy of the rally he held in Spartanburg only eight days earlier.
“Rock Hill was a complete rerun,” a veteran Palmetto political watcher observed. “If you’d fallen asleep in the middle of the last one, you could have woken up in the middle of this one and still be up to speed.”
One of the few differences was a sharp decline in the number of hecklers. Around one dozen protestors were escorted out of the venue last week. This time there were three outbursts: two during Trump’s talk, and one during Republican gubernatorial candidate Alan Wilson’s turn during the down undercard candidate’s remarks.
Trump seems to have grown accustomed to such interruptions; he casually brushes them off as “paid protestors” the same way people wave away flies at a picnic. “Go home to Mom!” he yelled as the second was being led off. “Say hi to Mom for me. She voted for us!”
Another minor difference was the celebrity VIP who tagged along. Last week, it was former heavyweight boxing world champ, Evander Holyfield. On Thursday it was actor John Schneider (for geriatric voters who still remember him from the 1970s television hit “The Dukes of Hazzard.”)
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Minor deviances aside, the rally was a complete rerun of the preceding event. Trump entered to a recording of Lee Greenwood belting out “God Bless the USA.” He dispensed with plugging the local Republican candidate early on, then dove into a meandering stream of consciousness chat where he doesn’t hold back, relentlessly praising himself and his administration’s accomplishments, including these chestnuts:
“There’s never been two years like this for any president,” Trump said. “Pretend I’m on the ballot.”
He then proceeded to label Nordone’s opponent Annie Andrews “Tranny Annie” – and refer to her party as “Dumbocrats.”
Trump also renewed his pledge to pay every American $5,000 if the GOP retained control of the U.S. House and Senate next Tuesday, made the exact same joke about first lady Melania Trump scolding him for some of his remarks, again slobbered love all over the Winthrop University’s golf team, and repeated his crowd-pleasing line about how, after having renamed the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario, he’s now ready to rename a major river and an ocean. He replayed the exact same clip of a CNN report saying that polling shows Republicans really, really love him, asked Nordone to make a few short remarks, reminded South Carolinians that early voting ends on October 31, and ended with his trademark podium dancing to The Village People’s “YMCA.”
The whole she-bang ran just two minutes shy of last week’s 92-minute MAGA-palooza.
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“That was it?” one veteran Palmetto political operative asked incredulously. “If last week’s visit didn’t win over voters to Darline, how was re-staging the very same rally supposed to do it?”
In fact, some observers found the most interesting parts of the rally came during the remarks by various Republican candidates prior to Trump’s arrival.
For starters, take the newly minted junior senator’s brassy language. Nordone, who repeatedly called herself “a conservative Christian” (the second time immediately after inviting “liberals and socialists” to “kiss my ass”), made a point of swearing four times during her comments.
“She sounded more like a potty-mouth progressive than a conservative Republican,” the political operative disapprovingly noted.
More ominous was the veiled warning Wilson and Nordone directed to hard-right conservatives.
“Not voting for Darline Graham says you’re ok with Chuck Schumer becoming Senate Majority Leader,” Wilson said.
“Staying home or voting for anyone other than the candidates on the Republican ticket is a vote for the radical Democrats looking to turn our conservative state liberal,” Nordone added.
“That’s unmistaken political code talk,” the veteran observer noted. “The SCGOP establishment elites are already teeing it up in case Darline loses next Tuesday. They’ll say, ‘See, we told you,’ and blame the party’s right flank. They’re already playing Pontius Pilate and washing their hands so they won’t be stuck with the blame should she go down in flames.”
Other political pros saw Thursday’s rally as a failed Hail Mary pass.
“Trump didn’t reach out to black voters at all,” the GOP strategist concluded. “He didn’t invite the hardcore right to return to the fold. He didn’t offer a single new argument for why late undecideds should vote for her. It was yet another wasted opportunity.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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