By Nolan D. McCaskill
WASHINGTON, Aug 11 (Reuters) - South Carolina voters head to the polls on Tuesday to decide if Darline Graham should replace her late brother, Senator Lindsey Graham, as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in November's election after he died last month.
After the senator's unexpected death from a heart ailment, Governor Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham to serve the rest of his term through early January. President Donald Trump endorsed Darline Graham, who has never
held public office, for a full six-year term, calling it a "fabulous tribute" to her brother.
But critics said her bid, based on family name recognition and presidential backing without a political record of her own, had the air of an attempted coronation.
Ten candidates are running in Tuesday's election. The winner will face Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who had more than $3 million in her campaign war chest at the start of July.
If no primary candidate wins a majority on Tuesday, the top two finishers head to an August 25 runoff.
Graham's opponents include U.S. Representatives Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, former Governor Mark Sanford and self-funded Greenville businessman Mark Lynch.
Lindsey Graham won his June 9 primary seeking his fifth Senate term by almost 28 percentage points. Lynch, who placed second with nearly 29% of the vote, is the only candidate in the special primary from the original primary field.
Lynch received more than 130,000 votes in that primary, suggesting some Republican primary voters had an appetite for change before Lindsey Graham's death.
"People are furious" about "the coronation of Darline Graham," Lynch said in an interview. "It's OK that they picked her to be the interim senator until January but not to run for office."
Graham is expected to make the runoff, but skeptics have questioned her credentials and the president's decision to endorse her over more qualified candidates who have been vetted in previous campaigns. Her rivals expect voters who do not choose her on Tuesday to back her opponent in a runoff.
Trump won South Carolina in 2024 by nearly 18 percentage points.
In interviews, Republicans questioned the potency of Trump's endorsement in South Carolina, where he backed a pair of runoff candidates for governor after polls showed his first pick, Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette, was poised to lose against Attorney General Alan Wilson.
U.S. Representative Nancy Mace, who ran unsuccessfully for governor, predicted Graham would lose her Senate bid just as Trump's original choice for governor lost.
The president's endorsement "gets you into a runoff," she told Reuters. "But ... it's not enough to win a race anymore."
The eventual Republican nominee is favored to win in November.
(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
