First Poll on South Carolina Senate Race for Lindsey Graham’s Seat Shows Runoff Is Likely

L: Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images; R: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images

The first polling of the special election for South Carolina’s U.S. Senate seat shows the race is very much undecided, with the pollster predicting a runoff.

Incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) died unexpectedly at the age of 71 on July 11, shortly after winning his primary.

His sister, Darline Graham, was appointed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) — and at the urging of President Donald Trump — to finish her brother’s term and sworn into office on July 14.

Trump soon declared he was encouraging her to run for the seat and posted a “Complete and Total Endorsement” for her on his Truth Social account, but that was not sufficient to clear the field for Darline Graham and 11 other Republicans who filed to run for the Aug. 11 special primary election, including Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC), and former South Carolina congressman and governor Mark Sanford.

The GOP primary was polled by Emerson College Polling South Carolina from July 28 to July 29 with a sample of 500 likely Republican primary voters in the state. The margin of error was +/- 4.3 percentage points.

The top choice for South Carolina Republicans right now isn’t Darline Graham or any of the politicians, but “undecided,” with 25% of respondents giving that answer.

Norman got support from 22%, Graham 19%, Fry 12%, Sanford 11%, and several other candidates earned just single digits. Emerson’s polling memo declared Norman and Graham the current leaders and predicted that a runoff election was “likely.”

Image via Emerson College Polling.

When the undecided voters were asked “which candidate do you lean toward,” 21% chose Fry; 21% Sanford; 17% Graham and 14% selected Norman, while the rest of the crowded field came in at single digits.

Of those polled, 53% said the president’s endorsement of Graham had “no impact” on their vote, while 29% said made them “more likely to support” her, and 18% “less likely to support.”

When asked what was their top issue the next senator should focus on, 60% picked the economy, 19% immigration, 8% healthcare, and 4% foreign policy.

The voters overwhelmingly said they wanted the candidates to debate — an unsurprising result in an open primary with only a few weeks to analyze the candidates — with 64% saying they thought it was “very important” for the candidates to debate before the special election, 23% “somewhat important,” 8% “not too important,” and 4% “not at all important.” In total, that amounted to 88% of respondents saying a having debate was important and 12% not important.

Read the polling memo and the full results with crosstabs.

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