Election 2026: Graham bids for 5th term

(The Center Square) – Five challengers on Tuesday will try to unseat U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina’s Republican primary.

Turning 71 five days after America turns 250, he’s hopeful of a fifth term and has the backing despite some past differences with mercurial second-term Republican President Donald Trump. The latest polling, from The Citadel, casts him with a 10% lead on 2020 state Senate candidate Mark Lynch.

Other polls say the gap is wider.

South Carolina will elect a U.S. senator; all seven representatives to the U.S. House; eight executive offices led by the governor; and all 124 members of the state House of Representatives. State senators are on four-year terms on a cycle parallel to the presidential races; the lower chamber has two-year terms.

Graham has been in the Beltway since first winning election – first of four terms – to the House of Representatives in 1994. He began his tenure in the Senate in 2002. In this 119th Congress, he’s chairman of the Committee on the Budget and has seats on committees for appropriations; environm...