President Donald Trump will hold a rally Thursday afternoon in Rock Hill, his second such rally in eight days to help boost turnout for Sen. Darline Graham on Election Day as polls tighten in South Carolina's Senate race.
Trump last week zeroed his focus on South Carolina's Upstate region, a cluster of red counties that Graham — Trump's handpicked choice to succeed her late brother Sen. Lindsey Graham who died in July — lost in the special primary and runoff elections.
This time, he will travel to Rock Hill in York County — the home of 5th District Congressman Ralph Norman, who lost to Graham in the runoff and says he will not publicly campaign for her.
Norman told Fox News in part that South Carolina voters "are not buying the argument" that everyone must "settle" and vote for Graham on Nov. 3.
Norman lost to Graham by 5 points in the August runoff, and it wasn't until days later that Norman said he would support Graham — and the Republican ticket — on Election Day.
Norman said his family, however, will not back her.
His son, Warren, said he will instead vote for Graham's main challenger, Democratic nominee Dr. Annie Andrews.
Andrews held her own get-out-the-vote rally Wednesday in Rock Hill, where she referred to Warren as her "new friend," and said the pair grabbed a beer before her event.
"This campaign is about bringing people together, because if we want to move forward together as a state in South Carolina, it's going to take all of us remembering that there is far more that unites us than divides us," Andrews told the crowd.
Two third-party candidates — Constitution candidate Mark Hackett and and Libertarian candidate Kasie Whitener — are also on the ballot.
South Carolina Republicans, meanwhile, are preaching the importance of unity in the general election, hoping that voters put their issues over Graham aside and vote straight GOP.
At his annual "Freedom Fry" fundraiser Monday, 7th District Congressman Russell Fry called on Norman to publicly campaign for Graham. He and others hope large turnout will help down-ballot races, including for the state House.
Fry placed third in the special Aug. 11 primary for Senate.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who headlined the Myrtle Beach event, joined the calls.
"You ran against Darline, you had a vigorous contest and you didn't prevail," Cruz said to Fry before hundreds at the fundraiser. "And you know what? It would be easy to take your ball and go home. It would be easy to be get mad and get petulant, but you didn't do that. Instead, you're standing up and fighting because you care about South Carolina, you care about this country enough that we need to all line up."
What will Trump say in Rock Hill?
For days, Trump has stumped in various key states where he performed well but is now faced with competitive races in states that include Texas, Kansas and Ohio.
Trump's visit to South Carolina — a state he won by 18 points in 2024 — will be his third visit to the state this year.
Last week in Pendleton, Trump did not mention Norman.
That could change in Rock Hill Thursday as several polls shows an increasingly competitive race in the red state.
A Democrat has not won a statewide race in South Carolina since 2006, and a Democrat has not won a U.S. Senate seat since the late 90s.
A Citadel Poll released late Tuesday showed Graham with a 4-point lead over Andrews, just outside the margin of error. It cited Trump’s Upstate visit as why Graham was slightly outside of the margin of error.
Not long after, a New York Times/Siena Poll released Wednesday showed Graham and Andrews virtually tied, telegraphing that the Trump visit to Pendleton didn’t boost Graham enough.
State GOP Chairman Drew McKissick acknowledged in an interview Monday that it will be a close race and said the visit puts Trump in front of voters in a critical area, keeping him on the radar of voters in North Carolina and Georgia — two states with two other key Senate races but where polls show the Republican candidates lagging.
McKissick said Trump’s goal is to break through to those low propensity voters that tend to only cast a ballot in presidential election years.
"If those folks turn back out, that's a big boost to a Republican candidate in a midterm election cycle on top of the advantage that we typically already have," McKissick said. "So, you see him barnstorming the country doing exactly that, saying ‘Pretend like I'm on the ballot.’ And so our job, the state party job, has been focusing on, again, those low propensity Republicans, particularly in key districts all around the state."
As of Wednesday, more than 753,000 South Carolina voters have already cast an early ballot before Election Day on Tuesday.
Early voting ends Saturday.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
