Write-In Ralph: South Carolina Conservatives Revolt Against Trump-Backed Senate Pick Darline Graham

Avery Milton, a 28-year-old South Carolina native, has voted for Donald Trump in each of the past three elections. He says he believed the promise to put America first. Heading into the midterms, he describes himself as betrayed. "He stabbed us in the back during his second term," he told Al Jazeera. He says many people around him feel the same, especially younger conservatives starting families and entering the workforce, and that Trump's launch of a war on Iran, after campaigning on avoiding new wars, was a breaking point.

Milton is now helping lead a grassroots push to write in Republican Congressman Ralph Norman for the US Senate, instead of backing the party's nominee, Senator Darline Graham, whom Trump has endorsed. A write-in candidate's name is not printed on the ballot, but voters can write it in. The tactic is usually a protest and rarely wins. One exception came in 2010, when Alaska's Lisa Murkowski won a write-in campaign after losing her Republican primary. In South Carolina's 2022 Senate race, write-ins made up just 0.1 percent of votes.

Graham's path to the nomination was unusual. Senator Lindsey Graham died suddenly on July 11, and his younger sister, Darline, was appointed to serve out his term, making her the first sibling appointed to fill a Senate vacancy. She first described the job as finishing her brother's work. Days later Trump posted "RUN, DARLINE, RUN!" on Truth Social and promised his "complete and total endorsement." Three days after that, she announced on Fox News that she would seek a full six-year term. Milton felt the appointment had effectively "installed" a candidate.

She then beat Norman, who represents South Carolina's fifth congressional district, in the August primary. Since losing, Norman has repeatedly declined to campaign with her and has made clear his support is limited. "You have to earn the vote. She hasn't done that," he told The Wall Street Journal. Tensions run highest in the Upstate, where Norman has considerable support. Milton says Graham did little to reach voters there beyond private dinners and appearances with Trump. "She never tried to reach out to everyday people here Upstate," he said. He built a website for the Write-In Ralph movement and says supporters want a senator who thinks independently rather than being a rubber stamp.

Independents complicate the picture. South Carolina does not register voters by party, but an October New York Times/Siena poll found 30 percent of likely voters identify as independents, and among them Democratic nominee Annie Andrews led Graham by 20 points. John Connolly, a 77-year-old retiree in the Lowcountry whose allegiances have shifted over time, called Graham "nothing more than a puppet" who nods whenever she is told to. Leila Ali, a regional campaign adviser with more than a decade in Southern grassroots work, said strategists wrongly treat the Southern vote as a monolith.

Turnout is high. The state Election Commission reports nearly 950,000 early votes, a midterm record for South Carolina. Trump won the state by nearly 18 points in 2024, yet he has visited twice in three months to campaign for Graham. The October Times/Siena poll had Graham and Andrews tied at 48 percent among likely voters. No Democrat has won a South Carolina Senate seat since 1998.

Milton accepts the risk of helping a Democrat win. If Graham loses, he expects blame to fall on his movement, but says that assumes those votes would have gone to her anyway, "and that's just not the case." With the election on November 3, the question is whether the write-in vote stays near its historic sliver or grows large enough to matter in a tied race.