Darline Graham sworn in to fill late senator’s term
Graham’s death set off a broad reassessment of a political figure who, according to those who knew him across South Carolina, embodied the state’s own contradictions. His career spanned from the 1994 Republican Revolution to the Trump era, and the trajectory of his Senate tenure — from fiercely independent dealmaker to one of the president’s closest Capitol Hill allies — mirrored the transformation of the national party he served.
Born in 1955 to Millie and Florence James Graham, he grew up in Central, a small South Carolina town where his parents owned a restaurant, bar and pool hall. The family — Graham, his parents and his younger sister Darline — all lived in a single room in the back of the building. When the textile mill shift changed, workers would pour into the bar, and the young Graham would dress as a cowboy, walk along the bar and entertain them, an upbringing that Jennifer Berry Hawes, a ProPublica reporter who interviewed him, described as “not glamorous at all.”
Graham became the first member of his family to attend college, enrolling at the University of South Carolina. His mother died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and months later his father died of a heart attack. Graham became the guardian for Darline, nearly nine years his junior. He later said Social Security benefits helped keep them afloat. He earned a law degree and served as a judge advocate general in the Air Force, starting as a defense attorney for accused troops and rising to the service’s chief prosecutor in Europe, remaining in the reserves for decades.
He entered the U.S. House in 1994 as part of the “Republican Revolution” and was elected to the Senate in 2002, succeeding Strom Thurmond, the longest-serving senator in state history who died at 100 in 2003. Graham mastered the retail politics of a state where, as former state representative Bakari Sellers put it, “anything from a federal military issue to a passport issue to a letter of recommendation for a kid trying to go to the military, you go to two people in South Carolina. You go to Jim Clyburn or you go to Lindsey Graham.”
For the first half of his Senate career, Graham was a fiercely independent figure willing to work across the aisle. Alongside Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain he formed “the three amigos,” a hawkish, bipartisan trio that traveled the world. He was a key voice on immigration reform, national security and budget matters. Danielle Vinson, a politics professor at Furman University, said Graham quickly understood that media could compensate for lack of institutional power: “This was a man who was willing to sit down on the Sunday morning talkshows, any Sunday. ‘Christmas Eve? Fine, I’ll be there. Thanksgiving weekend? I’ll be there.’”
Then came Trump. During the 2016 Republican primaries, Graham ran for president himself and denounced the frontrunner in harsh terms, calling him a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” and declaring, “Don’t be the world’s biggest jackass.” But after Trump won the White House, Graham underwent what Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright called a “head-spinning metamorphosis” from Never Trump critic into one of the president’s most loyal allies and frequent golfing partners. In 2018 Graham delivered a furious, impassioned defense of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, helping to save the confirmation.
Seawright said Graham felt pressure to “remain relevant and remain at the forefront of the conversation.” He described Graham as serving as a “translator for Trump, like a liaison.” Mark Sanford, a former South Carolina governor whose son was Graham’s godson, rejected the idea that Graham had changed his principles. “He would tell you to your face, look, to wield power, you gotta be close to power,” Sanford said. “He had a real political nose for where power was, where it resided, and so he got close to McCain because that was a power node. He got close to Trump because that power node.”
Graham never married and had no children, and his personal life was the subject of quiet but persistent speculation. Caleb Davis, a 21-year-old Air Force enlistment candidate who visited the statehouse grounds this week, recalled that his old supervisor would say “Lindsey’s gay,” adding, “Of course, there’s no doubt in my mind that he was a true man.” Vinson said Graham’s lifelong devotion to his sister provided political cover: “The only time we saw her was out on the campaign trail or in campaign ads reminding people that he might not have the traditional wife and kids that so many of our elected officials have but he understood the responsibilities of a family.”
Darline Graham was sworn in Tuesday to serve the remainder of her brother’s unexpired term, taking the helm at what the Guardian described as a volatile time for American politics. In South Carolina, the loss is intensely personal. Roger Kirby, a Democratic state representative, said of Graham: “You loved him and you hated him and it could all be in the same month. But although I’m a Democrat and Lindsey was a Republican, I was always impressed with his constituent services. It’s amazing to think how much time he actually spent on the job. He was 100% a senator for the state of South Carolina.”