Darline Graham Is (Probably) Donald Trump’s Type

The stellar primary endorsement record that Donald Trump is so proud of is a bit of a joke since he mainly backs candidates who run unopposed or who are way ahead in the polls. However, there is zero doubt that Darline Graham would not have won South Carolina’s GOP Senate primary last night without the president’s massive help.

He even spent a bit of his super PAC’s money — which is usually reserved for Trump things — on the race.

That raises the question of why the president is so determined to see Graham succeed her brother Lindsey in the Senate.

It’s certainly not because she is especially qualified or brilliant.

Indeed, the opposite seems to be the case.

We won’t say that Darline* Graham is the dumbest or least informed senator. After all, there is Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) to consider. However, based on what we have seen of her, she isn’t far off.

During a debate ahead of Tuesday’s runoff, she bombed a question on Taiwan as hard as her brother wanted to bomb any country that starts with “Ira-.”

“I just want to be honest here … I’m not that informed on national security,” she said when asked about Taiwan and the South China Sea, before adding that she does “support the military.”

When asked about the gaffe on the Fox News Propaganda Hour with Sean Hannity, who also deserves some credit for her election, she noted that, “Of course, Taiwan is our friend,” before stating that the people of South Carolina (a state she believes is ten times more populated than it actually is) are more “concerned about boys in girls’ sports” than, apparently, the US’s main adversary seizing the country that makes most of the world’s semiconductors and advanced computer chips.

Finally, following her victory on Tuesday night, Graham criticized her opponent Annie Andrews for wanting to provide healthcare to all Americans by offering this gem:

“My parents worked long, hard hours. If they were sick, they had to get up and go to work,” she stated. “My mother passed away when I was 11 and my father just over a year later.”

In other words, Graham’s healthcare plan seems to be that people should work themselves to an early death, leaving their minor children to fend for themselves.

All of that raises the question of what Trump sees in her that made him fight so hard to get her into the Senate.

To answer that question, we have to look into the kind of person the president likes to surround himself with.

The President’s Type

When he was asked about the New York writer whom he was later found to have sexually abused, Trump famously noted that she was “not [his] type,” which is a super weird thing for someone accused of rape to say.

While many types of women have come forward to credibly allege that he sexually assaulted them, the president does seem to have a preference, which is why there is now such a thing as “Mar-a-Lago face.”

But that’s probably not it in this case.

What is much more likely is that Graham is Trump’s political type, which means fiercely loyal above all else.

Or maybe he just wanted to exact revenge on her runoff challenger, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), who dared to back fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP primary.

In any case, Graham could turn out to be a bit of a gamble.

If it turns out that Palmetto State voters prefer candidates who did not get into office because of nepotism or those who have a rudimentary grasp of politics beyond “Military good, men play women’s sports bad,” then she could find herself in a bit of trouble in November.

Of course, Graham is still heavily favored to win the general election… unless she falls out of Trump’s favor somehow.

Still, we wouldn’t be surprised if this race were to move out of the “solidly Republican” category in the next two months, in which case the president would only have himself to blame.

*Her name was listed as “Darlene” on her birth certificate but she misspelled it as a child and then just stuck with it, which is a very Trumpian thing to do. This is exactly why Republicans now have to pretend that it is possible to reduce the price of something by more than 100 percent, start referring to Lake Ontario as “Lake Trump” (or whatever), or, most importantly, pretend that the 2020 election was stolen.