{"id":11495,"date":"2026-07-20T11:54:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T06:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=11495"},"modified":"2026-07-20T11:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T06:54:23","slug":"trump-wants-grahams-sister-as-senate-replacement-not-mace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=11495","title":{"rendered":"Trump wants Graham&#039;s sister as Senate replacement \u2014 not Mace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/AoFWVoo8iOUmOZp3woiGY3PTJLE=\/0x0:4000x2250\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/13\/1783956917547.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/politics-policy\/donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\">Trump<\/a> wants South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham&#8217;s sister to fill his seat on an interim basis after his unexpected death early Sunday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters<\/strong>: Trump has a close friendship and working relationship with South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R), who&#8217;s expected to make the  temporary appointment today.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<ul>\n<li>Before Trump&#8217;s announcement that he favors <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/politics\/article\/inside-the-family-life-of-lindsey-graham-the-senator-who-helped-raise-his-little-sister-174044886.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFArHaSGunP5xO9tgfRiljZsZji8y7MoWlr1fIhrkbv_PtieOeRF8gI2o_tcd6SNXMzZwWFPHnriekdNTMCD6V4geV2hRSrc63ZnVroVJ-dQVuL2QILS8muxjspjoe5MLEKZVHsQcKeMv23yFk-WstgL6ZFuoFHaW-mt7eTfIsFx\" target=\"_blank\">Darline Graham Nordone<\/a> to serve her brother&#8217;s term the rest of the year, Trump&#8217;s advisers were sending signaling that Graham Nordone likely would be the pick.<\/li>\n<li>South Carolina will hold a GOP primary on Aug. 11 to pick a new Republican nominee for the Senate. The winner of the Nov. 3 election will take over Graham&#8217;s old seat in January. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Zoom in<\/strong>: Graham&#8217;s unexpected death made the GOP&#8217;s Senate margin even slimmer now, increasing the pressure to fill the seat as soon as possible.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Picking a &#8220;placeholder&#8221; like Graham&#8217;s sister gives the governor and president time to decide whom to support during the primary election.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!&#8221; Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/%40realDonaldTrump\/posts\/116913198631392475\" target=\"_blank\">wrote <\/a>Monday on Truth Social, underscoring his friendship with Graham.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;McMaster listens to Trump and Trump listens to McMaster,&#8221; a senior Trump adviser said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Inside the room<\/strong>: South Carolina Rep. Russell Fry (R) is a favorite candidate of some Trump insiders, who say he has good fundraising potential and a safe Republican seat that won&#8217;t hurt the GOP&#8217;s House margins.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fry&#8217;s colleague, Rep. Joe Wilson, has also surfaced as a possible candidate. He&#8217;s the father of South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, the GOP&#8217;s nominee for governor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The intrigue: <\/strong>Rep. Nancy Mace, who came in fifth in the GOP gubernatorial primary, has drawn an exceedingly negative reaction from Trump&#8217;s political operation by appearing to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NancyMace\/status\/2076301493284618708\" target=\"_blank\">float her own name<\/a> on social media to replace Graham the morning his death was announced, two sources told Axios.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;If Mace ends up in a runoff, we&#8217;ll drop $2 million on her head to keep her out,&#8221; said one top official with Trump&#8217;s political operation. &#8220;All we want is a Republican who is sane and can work with the White House.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Said a second: &#8220;POTUS wasn&#8217;t a fan already, but putting herself out as a candidate while everyone was absorbing the news of Lindsey&#8217;s death was in poor taste, even for Mace.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What they&#8217;re saying<\/strong>: Mace told Axios she was being unfairly singled out, noting that Graham&#8217;s former primary opponent, Mark Lynch, and Republican Rep. Ralph Norman also had floated their names.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Two men announced they were running to replace Lindsey Graham yesterday \u2014 within hours of his passing. I wasn&#8217;t one of them,&#8221; Mace said.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The pearl clutching by people afraid I will run hit a new high,&#8221; she added.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump wants South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham&#8217;s sister to fill his seat on an interim basis after his unexpected death early Sunday. Why it matters: Trump has a close friendship and working relationship with South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R), who&#8217;s expected to make the temporary appointment today. Before Trump&#8217;s announcement that he favors&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/AoFWVoo8iOUmOZp3woiGY3PTJLE=\/0x0:4000x2250\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/13\/1783956917547.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}