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South Carolina’s Process to Replace Lindsey Graham Is What Democracy Should Look Like

The Palmetto State will let primary voters nominate Graham’s successor. Maine, on the other hand, is letting a party convention pick Graham Platner’s replacement.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, right, joined by US Senator Lindsey Graham, speaks to reporters on Tuesday, April 6, 2021, in Columbia, SC.

The sudden death of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a onetime Republican “maverick” who abandoned most of his pretenses toward independent political thinking in the service of Donald Trump’s presidency, has upended the politics of the state and nation that he served for 32 years in state and federal office.

Graham was such an enduring Capitol Hill character that his unexpected passing sparked a steady stream of reflections Sunday on the complex legacy of a conservative foreign-policy hawk who once warned Republicans, “If we nominate Donald Trump, we will get destroyed… and we will deserve it,” but ended up declaring years later, “Donald J. Trump, in my view, is the greatest president of all time.”

Yet, American politics is a fast-moving train, and the reaction to Graham’s death at age 71 was instantaneously coupled with speculation about who would succeed the four-term senator, who was up for reelection in November. Under South Carolina law, Republican Governor Henry McMaster will quickly choose an interim appointee to serve out the Graham term that ends in January. But the real selection of a successor will be made—as it should be—by the people of South Carolina.

South Carolina is now one of two states in the 2026 electoral cycle where partisans must select a new Senate nominee and mount a November campaign that could decide control of the chamber. The other is Maine, where Democratic US Senate nominee Graham Platner filed paperwork Friday to formally end his candidacy, in response to a number of controversies, including an allegation of assault by a former girlfriend, which Platner denies.

Under Maine law, Platner had to file that paperwork before 5 pm on July 13. In doing so, he created an opening that must be filled by July 27. But Maine statutes don’t specify how a vacancy on the party line should be filled. So Democratic leaders in the state have cobbled together a process that starts with county........

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