{"id":45171,"date":"2026-07-12T12:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T17:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=45171"},"modified":"2026-07-12T12:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T17:17:11","slug":"the-2026-senate-campaign-updates-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/07\/12\/the-2026-senate-campaign-updates-25\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2026 Senate Campaign: Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>This morning we were met by the announcement of <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/06\/15\/the-2026-senate-campaign-updates-20\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Carolina<\/a> Senator <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lindsey_Graham\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lindsay Graham&#8217;s<\/a> (R) sudden passing. While his recent support of President Trump was and is perplexing, this remains a sadder time than many will realize. He&#8217;d served the nation in the Air Force as a Judge Advocate General, then joined the South Carolina Air National Guard, and then the U.S. Air Force Reserve, and thus deserved respect for his military service.As a member of Congress in both the House and the Senate, he&#8217;d served for 31 years and built a reputation for expertise in foreign affairs and a war hawk. The loss of this expertise is more important than judged by those who think politics is some sort of big game from which to extract trophies and victories, regardless of political persuasion. Governance is about keeping the populace safe, and experience and expertise is one very important part of promulgating wise governance. A loss of experience and expertise is a loss for all of us.\n<p>Senator Graham was running for re-election and had won the primary. How much impact does his passing have on that race? If you&#8217;re a Republican in South Carolina, a bit at least. <em><strong>WaPo<\/strong><\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2026\/07\/12\/south-carolina-gop-governor-name-graham-initial-replacement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reports<\/a> a special (primary) election must be held in order to select a new candidate, with a filing period of 21-28 July, and the actual election on 11 Aug, plus a potential runoff on 25 Aug.<\/p>\n<p>Who might run? Here&#8217;s <em><strong>WaPo&#8217;s<\/strong><\/em> analysis, no doubt a trifle hasty:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>South Carolina has six sitting GOP House members, including Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, who both gave up their seats to run unsuccessfully for governor this year. A person familiar with Mace\u2019s thinking confirmed that she is strongly considering running for Senate.<\/p>\n<p>South Carolina\u2019s crowded gubernatorial primary also included Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Trump\u2019s initial pick, who lost in a runoff. Graham faced a primary challenge from the right in business owner Mark Lynch, who received nearly 29 percent of the vote in June.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>President Trump tried to tease that he has a choice, but didn&#8217;t give a name. I&#8217;ll take that to mean the perceived front-runner will receive the endorsement just prior to the election date, as that has become the President&#8217;s strategy in his desperate quest for respect.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re not a Republican then &#8230; not so much. Even if the winner of the primary is well out of step with the South Carolina Republican base and independents, it&#8217;s most likely that the nominee will still win. <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/07\/11\/listen-to-the-voters-not-yourselves\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Just ask former Rep Joe Cunningham (D-SC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Rest in Peace, Senator Graham.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning we were met by the announcement of South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham&#8217;s (R) sudden passing. While his recent support of President Trump was and is perplexing, this remains a sadder time than many will realize. He&#8217;d served the nation in the Air Force as a Judge Advocate General, \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/07\/12\/the-2026-senate-campaign-updates-25\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45172,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45171\/revisions\/45172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}