Time Again For America's Sexennial Fantasy: Can We PLEASE Sh*tcan Lindsey Graham?
Voters love Graham like they love his precious Iran war.
Sure, sexennial just means every six years, like a Senate term. But we still feel a little bad about putting that word, “fantasy,” and “Lindsey Graham” so close to each other. Sorry not sorry. Because just as we can’t resist the temptation of “THIS is the year Texas goes blue,” we also can’t seem to break our optimism that voters in South Carolina will finally replace Lindsey Graham with “someone less loathsome,” a bar so low that a fair number of merely awful Republicans might ooze over it. It’s like finding “someone more likeable than Ted Cruz.”
Simply put, Graham is not widely loved, even though he keeps getting reelected. Despite polling in 2020 showing he was in a close race against Democrat Jaime Harrison, Graham ultimately managed a 10-point win that year. Graham did at least get to whine that Harrison outpaced him in fundraising, griping on Fox News, “I’m being killed financially. This money is because they hate my guts.”
Nobody Likes Him, Everybody Hates Him, But Graham Won’t Eat These Worms
In March 2026 polling, just 34 percent of South Carolina voters gave Graham a “favorable” rating, with 57 percent saying they were “looking to vote for someone else.” A December 2025 PPP poll showed Graham leading a “generic Democrat” by just two points, with 60 percent of respondents saying they want someone new in the Senate. (That jumped to 73 percent among independent voters.)
And now that he’s become the top cheerleader for Donald Trump’s stupid, unpopular war against Iran, we’re even seeing speculation that Graham’s warboner might be the one thing that finally sinks him, although the Washington Post (that’s a gift link) chickened out on saying “warboner.”
On the other hand, South Carolina has a long history of keeping its damn senators in office, as the 48-year career of execrable Dixiecrat-turned-Republican Strom Thurmond illustrates. In fact, the last time a US senator from South Carolina was voted out of office was in 1944, when Ellison Smith (D-Segregation) lost his bid for a seventh term. But that’s a pattern, not an inevitability, and while other GOP-held Senate seats have better chances to be flipped this year, we won’t be calling Graham invulnerable — he’s going to have to work to keep his seat.
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Republicans In Disarray!
Thanks to his weird sycophancy to Trump, Graham has Great Leader’s endorsement, despite those moments in the past when Graham sinned by speaking ill of him. The two of them are so amorally transactional that they’re almost perfect for each other, until they aren’t. Despite the endorsement, a flock of Republicans threw their MAGA hats into the ring to run against Graham, most arguing he’s not rightwing enough. On the day of the filing deadline earlier this month, though, one of the more viable primary contenders, Paul Dans, one of the chief culprits behind Project 2025, abruptly pulled out of the race and spilled his seed upon the ground threw his support behind another challenger to Graham, appliance store owner Mark Lynch.
Trump claimed that Dans obviously left the race because Tucker Carlson had endorsed Dans, calling the endorsement the “KISS OF DEATH.” That didn’t make a lot of sense to anyone but Trump, who just knows that nobody in the GOP can possibly disagree with his glorious war in Iran, which a bunch of MAGAs nonetheless do.
On Twitter, Dans said the decision to drop out wasn’t about Carlson, but about being true to the real MAGA vision by beating Trump’s chosen candidate, writing, “ we cannot Make America Great Again until Lady Graham is taken out of office.”
In a gesture of ritual humiliation, Dans included a screenshot of Trump’s exultant post about his leaving the race, along with a photo of him and Trump at Mar-a-Lago, to remind Great Leader they once shared a love for hurting the poor and helping the rich.
We also like Dans’s oblique admission that he couldn’t hope to match Graham’s $19 million war chest, saying that Lynch is the candidate who “has the resources to make that happen.”
Separately, Trump proclaimed that Lynch “would be a DISASTER for the Republican Party” if elected, and … hey, you know WHO ELSE said something similar to that back in 2016?
This Mark Lynch probably won’t beat Graham in the primary, which might be just as well, because as Nixon asked HR Haldeman about G. Gordon Liddy, the man “just isn't well screwed on is he? Isn't that the problem?”
For instance, Mark Lynch says he wants to cut off all US military aid to Israel, not because he has any qualms about Benjamin Netabyahu’s government, but because as Lynch explained to the South Carolina Daily Gazette, Israel already has the only ally it will ever need — the Lord God Almighty — so the US may as well save its money.
“The Bible prophesies the future – nobody’s gonna really ever harm Israel,” he told the Gazette. “Maybe they could loan us some money, because we don’t have the money.”
Huh, so he’s saying Jews know all about amassing wealth, is he?
Lynch also criticized the idea of pursuing regime change in Iran, explaining that the US hasn’t had a great track record in overthrowing foreign governments. But he couldn’t just stop there, and explained, “In the long run, we can’t force a country to change its belief system in a chaotic Islam environment,” because how could anyone hope to wean those people off their addiction to chaos and Islam?
Can Democrats Beat Lindsey? Depends On How The Iran War Goes!
In a saner world, either of the two top Democrats in the primary would have a solid chance of beating Graham and his warmongery Trump Devotion Syndrome. Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician from Charleston, is the clear front-runner and top fundraiser. She has made public health and healthcare affordability central themes in her campaign, which kicked off last May with an announcement video calling attention to the risk that RFK Jr. poses to Americans’ health.
It’s a pretty great ad, especially with its comparison of Graham to a tragically constipated child, because they’re both full of shit — but only the kiddo is likely to get successful treatment. It also presciently included an X-ray of a child suffering from measles pneumonia, well before South Carolina became, thanks in large part to declining vaccination rates, the site of one of the nation’s worst measles outbreaks.
Andrews told The 19th in a February interview that threats to children’s health and wellbeing are only getting worse in the Trump era:
“As we see our children under constant threats — whether it’s from the gun violence epidemic or now sort of the politicization of HHS and vaccine recommendations — moms have had enough and they’re fighting back. […] I think I’m tapping into something here in South Carolina and across the country. Moms who just get that ‘mama bear’ instinct — and now they understand that politics is a really important way to fight back and protect their kids.”
No, we wouldn’t mind at all if Andrews were to ride a repurposed trope from Sarah Palin into the Senate, fine with us. She says that Kennedy’s attacks on science were key to her getting into the race, and that the cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and Obamacare premium subsidies in Trump’s Big Ugly Bill have just made the situation all the worse. She also cites affordability, addressing gun violence, and protecting access to abortion as other top priorities. (Also, a trivia fact: If elected, Andrews would be the first pediatrician elected to the Senate, which has had a bunch of other kinds of doctors plus self-certified “doctor” Rand Paul.)
The measles outbreak in South Carolina also prompted Andrews to add a measles and vaccination FAQ to her campaign site.
Yr Wonkette also likes Brandon Brown, a former administrator at three Historically Black Colleges/Universities, and a blogger whose writing Yr Editrix really likes. His campaign’s issues page, with his “Fair Shot Agenda,” is delightfully nerdy and makes a hell of a lot of sense, drawing together the connections between progressive issues including health care (he and Andrews both support universal healthcare), voting rights, safety (not only from crime but from Trump’s criminal deployments of federal forces to American cities), clean air and water, education, and housing and a living wage.
Like Liz Warren, Brown has a plan for most major issues, and hey, did we mention he has a blog? Like Doug Jones in the Alabama governor’s race, and for that matter like Andrews and her messaging on health, Brown isn’t only campaigning for himself, he’s also campaigning as a form of public service, to call attention to issues like the Iran War’s effect on energy prices, the GOP threats to voting rights, and, just yesterday, Brown’s blueprint for a “Women’s Freedom and Health” bill he wants to pursue if he’s elected to the Senate.
So far, Andrews is the clear front-runner for the June 9 Democratic primary, both in the polling and in fundraising, with cash on hand totaling about $2.6 million. Brown has only raised about $60,000 in the first quarter, but has around 1,200 volunteers canvassing around the state; both say they believe the key to winning against Graham won’t be paid advertising but their ground game. We like both of ‘em, because goddamn it they know what they’re talking about, they’re for making life better for everyone Trump and Graham don’t give two shits about, and they’re both just plain kinder, smarter people than the nasty old warmonger they hope to defeat. They both face long odds, but wouldn’t you just love to see that smug, smarmy jerk have to give a concession speech?
[WCIV / PPP / WaPo (gift link) / AP / SC Daily Gazette / The 19th / Annie Andrews campaign / Brandon Brown campaign]
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The only person who could exceed Lindsey Graham's $19 million war chest is Byron Noem.
I lived in SC 40 years ago and I swear I was in another dimension. The south does not like change and if you weren't born there you are a damn yankee.