The 2026 South Carolina Senate Special Election
Sen. Lindsey Graham died on July 11, 2026, opening a U.S. Senate seat that South Carolina will fill in a special election. Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Graham's sister, Darline Graham Nordone, as interim senator; President Trump has endorsed her for the full term. Candidate filing opens July 21 and closes July 28. Four Republicans have declared: Mark Lynch, Duke Buckner, Rep. Ralph Norman, and Rep. Russell Fry. Rep. Nancy Mace has not declared and is not on the November ballot; she ran for governor instead of seeking reelection and lost the June 9 Republican primary. This hub tracks the filing calendar, the declared field, published polling, and Mace's own dated statements as the story develops.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) died on July 11, 2026, of cardiac arrest, as reported at the time by South Carolina and national outlets. Graham had represented South Carolina in the U.S. Senate since January 2003 and had just won the Republican Senate primary in June for what would have been a fifth term. His death opened the seat and set in motion both an interim appointment and a special election to fill it for the remainder of the term.
This page tracks that election: the filing calendar, the declared candidates, published polling, and Rep. Nancy Mace's own dated public statements about whether she will seek the seat. Every fact below is sourced to a named outlet, an official state or campaign document, or a dated public statement, and is updated as the record develops.
How the seat opened
Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Graham's younger sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to hold the seat on an interim basis. She was sworn in on July 14, 2026, becoming the first woman to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate. On July 17, 2026, President Donald Trump endorsed Nordone for a full six-year term, writing that he had asked her, "for the Good of our Nation, to run for the U.S. Senate in the Special Republican Primary on Tuesday, August 11, 2026," and that she had his "Complete and Total Endorsement." The full timeline of that endorsement, and how it narrowed Mace's options, is cataloged in Maceopedia's July 17 dispatch. Mace's own tribute to Graham, posted the day he died, is cataloged in Mace honors Lindsey Graham after months of public clashes.
The filing calendar
Candidate filing has not opened as of this writing. The dates below are the official calendar published by the South Carolina Election Commission.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Tuesday, July 21, 2026, noon | Candidate filing opens |
| Tuesday, July 28, 2026, noon | Candidate filing closes |
| August 5-7, 2026 | Early voting |
| Tuesday, August 11, 2026 | Special Republican primary |
| Tuesday, August 25, 2026 | Runoff, if no candidate clears 50 percent |
| Tuesday, November 3, 2026 | Special general election, against Democratic nominee Dr. Annie Andrews |
Because filing does not open until July 21, nobody has filed for this race yet, including any of the candidates named below. Public figures who have said they intend to run are described here as having declared or entered the race, not as having filed, until the filing period opens and the state's candidate list is public.
The declared Republican field
Four Republicans have publicly declared a campaign for the seat:
| Candidate | Declared | Current office |
|---|---|---|
| Mark Lynch | July 13, 2026 | Businessman (not an officeholder) |
| Duke Buckner | July 17, 2026 | (not an officeholder) |
| Rep. Ralph Norman | July 18, 2026 | U.S. House, SC-5 |
| Rep. Russell Fry | July 20, 2026 | U.S. House, SC-7 |
Fry, the most recent entrant, announced on X at 8:01 a.m. ET on July 20, 2026: "South Carolina, I'm in! I'm running for the U.S. Senate... I will be your conservative MAGA candidate in the special primary Senate election this summer." The full announcement, his record, and the same-morning exchange it set off with Mace are cataloged in Maceopedia's dispatch on his entry and at Russell Fry, People entry.
Fifty-nine minutes after Fry's announcement, Mace posted on X, without naming him: "If you're running for two offices at once, you've already told us who you are. That's not about politics anymore - that's about power." She argued that a sitting House Republican who wins the Senate seat in November would vacate his House seat until the following May, narrowing the House GOP's majority. The full post and its context are cataloged in Maceopedia's dispatch on the exchange.
Rep. William Timmons (R-SC4), an ally of the late Graham, publicly declined to back either Mace or Norman, calling the rush to claim the seat "thirsty for attention." Mace's on-camera reply, captured by Fox Carolina: "So he can go fly a kite." That exchange is cataloged in Maceopedia's dispatch.
Where Nancy Mace stands
Rep. Nancy Mace has not declared a Senate campaign and has not filed. She is also not on the November 2026 ballot in any race: rather than seek reelection to her U.S. House seat (South Carolina's 1st District), she ran for governor of South Carolina and lost the June 9, 2026 Republican gubernatorial primary, finishing fifth with 12.2 percent. Her House term ends in January 2027.
On July 12, 2026, the day after Graham's death, Mace appeared across CBS News, Fox News, and CNN, and her public answer on whether she would run moved repeatedly over the course of the day, from "I'm never going to shut the door" and "I would be an idiot not to at least look at it," to "We can't afford to lose any seats in the House. I'm not pursuing it," to "There will be time to decide." Every line from that day, verbatim and dated, is cataloged in Maceopedia's dispatch on her media tour. As of this writing she has not announced a decision.
The Emerson College poll
The only traditional poll taken since Graham's death is an Emerson College Polling survey for Nexstar Media, fielded July 14-15, 2026, of 500 likely South Carolina Republican primary voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. It was in the field before Rep. Fry, Rep. Norman, and Duke Buckner had declared; at the time it was fielded, only Mark Lynch had entered the race. The published, rounded results:
| Candidate | Share |
|---|---|
| Rep. Ralph Norman | 16% |
| Mark Lynch | 13% |
| Rep. Nancy Mace | 10% |
| Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette | 10% |
| Rep. Russell Fry | 9% |
| Gov. Henry McMaster | 8% |
| Sen. Darline Graham Nordone | 6% |
| Former Gov. Mark Sanford | 5% |
| Someone else | 5% |
| Undecided | 18% |
Emerson's executive director, Spencer Kimball, framed the result: "No candidate begins as a clear favorite among voters to replace the late Senator." No candidate reached 20 percent, and the largest single response was undecided. The full breakdown, including a second version of the ballot test that excludes Nordone, is in Maceopedia's dispatch on the poll. The primary release, with full methodology, is at Emerson College Polling.
This page catalogs public filings, dated statements, and published polling. It does not predict any candidate's decision or the outcome of the race, and it will be updated as filing opens on July 21 and the field is confirmed.
Sources & related coverage
- South Carolina Election Commission, official filing calendar for the special U.S. Senate Republican primary: scvotes.gov.
- South Carolina Election Commission, statement addressing the two-offices ballot question: scvotes.gov.
- FITSNews, "2026 Senate Special Election: Dates And Ground Rules" (July 12, 2026): article.
- Emerson College Polling, "South Carolina 2026 Poll: No Clear Leader to Replace Late Sen. Graham on Ballot" (fielded July 14-15, 2026): primary release.
- Rep. Russell Fry, Senate announcement on X, @RussellFrySC (July 20, 2026).
- Rep. Nancy Mace, post on X responding to sitting House members entering the race, @NancyMace (July 20, 2026).
See also
Senate Race Dispatches
'He believed that showing up mattered': Mace issues a press release as every other SC House Republican attends Graham's funeral
On July 28, 2026, Sen. Lindsey Graham's casket lay in the US Capitol Rotunda and then was carried to Washington National Cathedral for his funeral. Every other South Carolina House Republican was there. Rep. Sheri Biggs and Rep. Joe Wilson presented wreaths at his casket. Reps. Russell Fry and Ralph Norman accompanied the South Carolina delegation. Rep. Nancy Mace, who spent two weeks publicly weighing a run for Graham's Senate seat and publicly clashing with him during his lifetime, did not attend. Her office issued a press release statement instead. Filing for the special election primary closed at noon the same day.
One day after quitting the race, Nancy Mace endorses Ralph Norman and snubs Trump's pick for Graham's Senate seat
One day after ruling out her own Senate bid, Rep. Nancy Mace endorsed Rep. Ralph Norman for the South Carolina special election on July 21, 2026, breaking publicly with President Trump, who had endorsed Lindsey Graham's sister Darline Graham Nordone on July 17. Norman accepted the endorsement while pledging to 'stand with President Trump,' the same president whose candidate he and Mace are now both running against. Filing opens today and closes July 28, with the primary set for August 11.
"South Carolina, I'm in": Russell Fry becomes the fourth Republican to enter the race for Lindsey Graham's Senate seat
Rep. Russell Fry (SC-7) announced a bid for the U.S. Senate on X at 8:01 a.m. ET on July 20, 2026, becoming the fourth declared Republican in the special election for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham's seat, joining Mark Lynch, Duke Buckner, and Rep. Ralph Norman. Fry, 41, unseated five-term incumbent Tom Rice in a 2022 primary after Rice voted to impeach President Trump; Trump has praised Fry as 'outstanding' but has not endorsed him, having already backed interim Sen. Darline Graham Nordone. Candidate filing does not open until noon Tuesday, July 21, so none of the four declared candidates, or anyone else, has filed yet. About an hour after Fry declared, Rep. Nancy Mace posted an objection to dual candidacies, writing that 'if you're running for two offices at once, you've already told us who you are' and that she 'will never hand Hakeem Jeffries that gift.' She named no one, but on the facts as they stand only Fry fits: he won his SC-7 primary on June 9 and is already the Republican nominee for that seat, so he would appear on the November ballot for both offices, while Norman did not file for House reelection after running for governor. Mace has still not announced a decision of her own.
"I'm not chasing another title, I'm chasing justice": Nancy Mace rules out the Senate race, and with it, public office
On July 20, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace announced in a 64-second video on X that she will not enter the special election for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham's Senate seat. 'I want to be straight with you. I'm not running for the US Senate, not because I'm backing down from a fight, but because the one I'm already in matters right now.' The announcement came three days after President Trump endorsed Graham's sister, interim Sen. Darline Graham Nordone, for the full term. Combined with her June 10 decision not to seek re-election to the House, Mace is now set to leave public office when her term ends in January 2027. This dispatch reproduces the video statement in full, verbatim, alongside the separate written statement she posted with it.
"If you're running for two offices at once, you've already told us who you are": Nancy Mace objects to sitting House members seeking the Senate, without naming Russell Fry
Fifty-nine minutes after Rep. Russell Fry announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate on July 20, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace posted a standalone statement on X, without naming Fry: 'If you're running for two offices at once, you've already told us who you are. That's not about politics anymore - that's about power.' She grounded the objection in House math, warning that a sitting Republican House member who wins the Senate seat in November vacates his seat until next May, narrowing an already thin majority, and writing 'I will never hand Hakeem Jeffries that gift.' Mace is not on the November 2026 ballot herself: she lost the June 9 Republican gubernatorial primary, did not seek reelection to her House seat, and has said her House term ends in January 2027.
"I would be an idiot not to at least look at it": filing for Lindsey Graham's Senate seat opens Tuesday, and Nancy Mace has seven days
Candidate filing for the special election to fill the late Sen. Lindsey Graham's seat opens Tuesday, July 21, 2026 and closes one week later, July 28. Rep. Ralph Norman formally entered the race July 18, defying President Trump's endorsement of interim Sen. Darline Graham Nordone. Businessman Mark Lynch has also declared. Rep. Nancy Mace has not filed, has not announced, and has not closed the door, telling Fox News on July 12, 'I would be an idiot not to at least look at it.' This dispatch catalogs the filing calendar, the interim appointment, Nordone's July 18 tribute letter to her brother, Trump's 'RUN, DARLINE, RUN!' endorsement, the Emerson College poll showing Mace at 10 percent, and her own July 12 statements verbatim.
"Which version of Nancy Mace will we get?": a nonbinary creator turns Mace's Senate flirtation into a software-update bit
On July 19, 2026, the YouTube and TikTok creator who posts as @defenestrans published an 85-second Short arguing that Nancy Mace's politics track her audience rather than her convictions, staged as a running joke about software updates. 'Nancy Mace has successfully upgraded to MAGA 5.0,' the host says, before running through 'Factory settings Nancy, District 1 Nancy, Governor's race Nancy, Senate DLC Nancy' and closing: 'I think she just has auto update on, and somehow every new version has more bugs than the last.' Two factual claims in the clip check out: Mace finished fifth in the June 9 Republican gubernatorial primary with 12.1 percent, and she has said on the record she will look at Lindsey Graham's Senate seat. The characterizations are the creator's own; Mace has not responded to the video.
Trump endorses Lindsey Graham's sister for a full Senate term, and puts Nancy Mace's decision in a harder box
President Trump endorsed Sen. Darline Graham Nordone for a full six-year term on July 17, 2026, the same day Axios reported that Rep. Nancy Mace is still considering a Senate bid despite the endorsement. The move closes the appointment lane Mace had been eyeing and forces a choice: run against Trump's chosen candidate in a primary where she trails at 10 percent, or stand down. This dispatch catalogs the full timeline, from Mace's 'I would be an idiot not to at least look at it' media tour on July 12, to her team's viability polling, to the Emerson poll showing her tied for third at 10 percent, to Trump's endorsement of Graham's sister.
First poll after Graham's death puts Nancy Mace at 10 percent, tied for third, as pollster says 'no candidate begins as a clear favorite'
The first poll taken after Sen. Lindsey Graham's death, an Emerson College Polling survey for Nexstar Media fielded July 14 to 15, found no clear front-runner in the Republican scramble for his South Carolina Senate seat. Rep. Nancy Mace drew 10 percent, tied for third with Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and behind Rep. Ralph Norman (16 percent) and businessman Mark Lynch (13 percent). No candidate reached 20 percent, and 'undecided' led the entire field at 18 percent.
So he can go fly a kite
Rep. William Timmons called his South Carolina colleagues 'thirsty' for eyeing Sen. Lindsey Graham's seat within 24 hours of his death and said he cannot support Nancy Mace or Ralph Norman. Mace's response, captured by Fox Carolina: 'So he can go fly a kite.'
Prediction Markets Put Nancy Mace Near the Floor in the Graham-Seat Scramble
Across Kalshi, Polymarket, Manifold, and PredictIt snapshots checked July 13, Nancy Mace was priced as a long-shot in the South Carolina Senate special-election scramble, ranging from tiny fractions of a percent on Polymarket to 3 cents on Kalshi and roughly 1.4 percent on Manifold. PredictIt showed 10 cents, but its stale order book made that a weak signal rather than a clean consensus.
Mace honors Lindsey Graham after months of public clashes: 'We did not always agree'
After Sen. Lindsey Graham died at 71 from what his office described as a brief and sudden illness, Nancy Mace posted a respectful Instagram tribute calling him a South Carolina giant and acknowledging, 'We did not always agree.' The post landed against a recent public record of friction: during her 2026 governor campaign, Mace demanded that President Trump remove Graham from the Situation Room over Iran, attacked him as sending 'someone else's kids to war,' and months earlier fired back after Graham backed Tim Scott's rebuke of her Charleston airport conduct. The longer arc stretches back to 2014, when Mace challenged Graham in the Republican U.S. Senate primary and finished fifth.
Townhall says Mace is 'already talking' about taking over Graham's Senate seat
Within hours of Sen. Lindsey Graham's death, Nancy Mace was already publicly and privately linked to the scramble for his Senate seat. Axios reported she was 'strongly considering' a run. Fox aired her saying she would 'be an idiot' not to look at the opportunity. Then Mace posted a Godfather clip with the line, 'Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in...' Townhall, writing from conservative media, framed the speed more harshly: 'Just hours after' Graham's passing, 'vultures' in South Carolina politics were already scheming for the empty seat.
'I would be an idiot not to': how Nancy Mace's answer on Lindsey Graham's Senate seat changed across one Sunday
Sen. Lindsey Graham died late Saturday night, July 11, 2026. By Sunday, Rep. Nancy Mace was on CBS, Fox, CNN and her own X account, and her answer on whether she would run for his Senate seat kept moving. She led with grief ('we're stunned'), posted a Godfather meme at 9:43 AM ('they pull me back in'), told Fox 'I'm never going to shut the door' and 'I would be an idiot not to at least look at it,' told CBS 'I would be remiss if I didn't at least consider it,' and by that afternoon told CNN 'we can't afford to lose any seats in the House, I'm not pursuing it' before adding 'there will be time to decide.' Every line is verbatim from her July 12 appearances, reproduced here so readers can judge.
A 'Mace for Senate' domain has sat registered since 2023, its owner hidden behind private WHOIS
A reader sent Maceopedia an ICANN registration-data lookup for maceforsenate.com. The public record shows the domain was created on August 24, 2023, nearly two years before Lindsey Graham's death opened a South Carolina Senate seat that Nancy Mace is now publicly weighing. Whoever registered it has kept their identity private: the registrant name, organization, and phone are all redacted, and the domain serves no website. Maceopedia independently confirmed the record against Verisign's authoritative RDAP database. The record does not establish who owns the domain, and this dispatch makes no claim that it is Mace or her campaign.
Trump allies say they can 'block Rep. Nancy Mace' from Graham seat appointment
As Nancy Mace's team explored a fast run for the Senate seat left open by Lindsey Graham's death, the sharper signal came from Trump's orbit. Politico reporter Meredith Lee Hill posted that Trump allies said they would be able to 'block Rep. Nancy Mace' from the seat, while Political Wire's excerpt framed it as blocking her from the appointment and privately pointed to her public clashes with Trump. The report landed the same morning Trump said on Meet the Press that he already had 'somebody' in mind for the vacancy, though Gov. Henry McMaster formally controls the interim appointment.