A grassroots Republican campaign to write in Ralph Norman for the US Senate is challenging President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate, Senator Darline Graham, as South Carolina’s election approaches.
The effort has been led in part by Avery Milton, a 28-year-old Trump voter who says the president’s second term has left him feeling betrayed. Milton backed Mr Trump in the past three elections but became disillusioned after the president launched a war on Iran despite campaigning on a promise to avoid new wars.
“He stabbed us in the back during his second term,” Milton said.
Milton said younger conservatives who are starting families and entering the workforce shared his frustration. He has helped build the Write-In Ralph movement, urging voters to choose Mr Norman even though his name does not appear on the ballot.
Write-in Ralph campaign challenges Trump-backed candidate
Mr Norman, who represents South Carolina’s fifth congressional district, lost the Republican primary to Ms Graham in August. He has since repeatedly declined to campaign alongside her and has made clear that his support is limited.
“You have to earn the vote. She hasn’t done that,” Mr Norman has said. “The campaign has been about trying to prop up a candidate.”
Ms Graham entered the race after being appointed to serve the remainder of her late brother Lindsey Graham’s Senate term. His sudden death on July 11 led to her appointment, making her the first sibling to fill a Senate vacancy.
She initially described the role as an opportunity to complete her brother’s work. Days later, Mr Trump urged her to seek a full six-year term, writing “RUN, DARLINE, RUN!” on Truth Social and promising his “complete and total endorsement”. She announced her candidacy three days later.
For some Republicans, the move from temporary appointment to full-term campaign was too rapid. Milton said the process had effectively “installed” a candidate.
He said Ms Graham had done little to win over ordinary voters in the state’s Upstate region, apart from private dinners and appearances with Mr Trump. “She [Graham] never tried to reach out to everyday people here Upstate,” Milton said. “And that spoke volumes about how this South Carolina GOP establishment feels about the grassroots conservatives. They just really don’t care.”
Milton said supporters wanted a senator who could act independently rather than simply follow party leadership. “We don’t necessarily want somebody that’s a rubber stamp for everything,” he said, adding that he wanted someone willing to “think of all the sides of an issue and policy”.
South Carolina Senate race tightens
The challenge comes as the contest has become unexpectedly close in a state where Republicans have long held the advantage. Mr Trump won South Carolina by nearly 18 percentage points in 2024 and has visited twice in three months to campaign for Ms Graham.
An October poll showed Ms Graham level with Democratic challenger Annie Andrews at 48 per cent among likely voters. The same poll suggested that 30 per cent of likely voters identified as independents, with Ms Andrews holding a 20-point lead over Ms Graham among that group.
Nearly 950,000 early votes have been cast in South Carolina, according to the state’s Election Commission, a record for a midterm election. The state does not register voters by party.
John Connolly, a 77-year-old retiree from the Lowcountry, said Ms Graham’s appointment reflected a political culture that rewarded loyalty over experience. “I see her as nothing more than a puppet,” he said. “To nod her head yes whenever she’s told to.”
Leila Ali, a regional campaign adviser who has worked with grassroots organisations across the American South for more than a decade, said strategists often underestimated the variety of views among Southern voters. “The biggest thing that people get wrong is that they think the Southern vote is this monolith,” she said.
Write-in candidates rarely win, although Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski secured victory through a write-in campaign in 2010 after losing her Republican primary. In South Carolina’s 2022 Senate race, write-in votes accounted for 0.1 per cent of all ballots cast.
Milton said supporters of the campaign were prepared to risk a Democratic victory rather than back Ms Graham. “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.”
