Challenging Trump's pick: South Carolina Republicans mount a 'Write-In Ralph' revolt

Ahead of the midterm elections in South Carolina, the Republican camp in the US state is split against itself. Instead of Senator Darline Graham, who has President Donald Trump's endorsement, a group of conservative activists is campaigning to elect Congressman Ralph Norman through write-in votes. Reporting from Charleston lays out the depth of the divide.

One of the movement's organisers is 28-year-old Avery Milton. The South Carolina native had voted for Trump in the past three elections and considered himself a die-hard supporter of the president. This time, he says, Trump has betrayed them. 'He stabbed us in the back during his second term,' Milton told Al Jazeera.

Milton said many people close to him share the same frustration, particularly younger conservatives around his age who are starting families and entering the workforce. Trump launching a war on Iran, after campaigning on a promise to avoid new wars, was a particular breaking point for them.

A write-in candidate is someone whose name does not appear on the ballot but can still be chosen by voters who write it in themselves. The option is often used to indicate dissatisfaction with the official candidates, but it rarely leads to victory. One of those rare victories came in 2010, when Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska won after launching a write-in campaign, having lost her Republican primary that year. In the 2022 South Carolina Senate race, write-in votes accounted for just 0.1 percent of all votes cast.

At the centre of the dispute is Senator Darline Graham. After the sudden death of Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham on July 11, his younger sister Darline was appointed to serve out the remainder of his term. Her appointment followed a tradition of family members succeeding deceased lawmakers, most commonly their spouses, but she made history as the first sibling appointed to fill a Senate vacancy.

On her appointment, Graham described the role as an opportunity to finish her brother's work during the remaining months of his term. But days later, Trump urged her to run for a full six-year term, posting 'RUN, DARLINE, RUN!' on Truth Social and promising his 'complete and total endorsement' if she entered the race. Three days later, Graham announced on Fox News that she would run for a full term.

For some Republicans, the transition from temporary appointment to a full-term campaign happened too quickly. Milton said he felt the appointment had effectively 'installed' a candidate. Graham went on to defeat Ralph Norman in the state's August primary elections, but the divisions did not heal.

Norman, who represents South Carolina's fifth congressional district, has repeatedly declined to campaign alongside Graham since losing the primary and has made clear that his support for her is limited. 'You have to earn the vote. She hasn't done that,' he told The Wall Street Journal. 'The campaign has been about trying to prop up a candidate.'

The tensions have been particularly pronounced in Upstate South Carolina, where Norman has considerable support. Milton said Graham has done little to reach voters there during the campaign, aside from private dinners and appearances alongside Trump. In his words, that spoke volumes about how the South Carolina Republican establishment regards grassroots conservatives.

Frustrated by what he saw as a failure to represent grassroots conservatives, Milton helped launch the Write-In Ralph movement, building a website and giving the campaign a public platform. He said he and other supporters wanted a senator who would think independently, rather than simply fall in line with party leadership. 'We don't necessarily want somebody that's a rubber stamp for everything,' he said, adding that they wanted someone willing to 'think of all the sides of an issue and policy'.

The state does not register voters by party. A New York Times/Siena poll conducted in October suggested that 30 percent of likely voters identified as independents, and among those voters Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews led Graham by 20 percentage points. South Carolina has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since 1998, and Graham's struggle to unite conservatives could give Andrews an opening.

John Connolly, a 77-year-old retiree who lives in South Carolina's Lowcountry, is one voter whose political allegiances have shifted over time. He sees Graham's appointment as part of a political culture that rewards loyalty over experience. 'I see her as nothing more than a puppet,' he told Al Jazeera. 'To nod her head yes whenever she's told to.'

Leila Ali, a regional campaign adviser who has spent more than a decade working with grassroots organisations across the US South, said political strategists often underestimate the diversity of the Southern electorate. 'The biggest thing that people get wrong is that they think the Southern vote is this monolith,' she told Al Jazeera. She pointed to the state's early voting figures as evidence of engagement: nearly 950,000 early votes have been cast, according to the state's Election Commission, a new record for a midterm election.

The stakes of the race have become increasingly apparent as the November 3 election approaches. Despite Trump winning South Carolina by nearly 18 percentage points in 2024, he has made two trips to the state in three months to campaign for Graham — an extraordinary show of presidential attention. The October New York Times/Siena College poll had Graham and Democratic challenger Annie Andrews tied at 48 percent among likely voters.

Even with the race tightening, Republicans like Milton are willing to risk a Democratic victory by writing in Ralph Norman on their ballot. And if Graham loses, Milton says the blame should not fall on the write-in effort. 'They're going to try to point the finger on this Write-in Ralph movement,' he said. 'But I just want to make something very clear: that would assume that our votes would have gone to Darline anyway, and that's just not the case.'