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{"id":26201,"date":"2026-07-20T20:17:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/thune-withholds-a-south-carolina-senate-endorsement-while-complimenting-graham\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T20:17:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:17:22","slug":"thune-withholds-a-south-carolina-senate-endorsement-while-complimenting-graham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/thune-withholds-a-south-carolina-senate-endorsement-while-complimenting-graham\/","title":{"rendered":"Thune withholds a South Carolina Senate endorsement while complimenting Graham"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he is not endorsing a candidate in the South Carolina race to succeed the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, but believes his sister, Sen. Darline Graham, would be a \u201cstrong candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe obviously carries on Lindsey\u2019s legacy. But I think she&#8217;s a very accomplished person in her own right,\u201d Thune said.<\/p>\n<p>Thune added he\u2019ll \u201clet the voters in South Carolina decide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thune\u2019s comments come after Darline Graham announced during a Fox News interview Monday she is jumping into the race following President Donald Trump&#8217;s encouragement her to do so during a closed-door meeting last week. Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday that Graham would have his endorsement if she decided to run.<\/p>\n<p>But Trump\u2019s backing of Graham hasn\u2019t stopped others from jumping in the race, including two other Republicans in South Carolina\u2019s congressional delegation. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said over the weekend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/18\/ralph-norman-south-carolina-senate-01004233\" target=\"_blank\">he will run<\/a> and Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/20\/fry-jumps-into-south-carolina-senate-race-01004805\" target=\"_blank\">announced his run<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he is not endorsing a candidate in the South Carolina race to succeed the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, but believes his sister, Sen. Darline Graham, would be a \u201cstrong candidate.\u201d \u201cShe obviously carries on Lindsey\u2019s legacy. But I think she&#8217;s a very accomplished person in her own right,\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}