Darline Graham Nordone was sworn in as the junior senator from South Carolina on Tuesday, three days after her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, died suddenly from an aortic dissection.
The younger sister of Graham, 71, by nine years, Graham Nordone’s swearing-in as the junior senator from South Carolina, was conducted by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Senate’s president pro tempore, at a well-attended ceremony Tuesday on the Senate floor. Her oath of office capped off a whirlwind few days that caught Washington completely by surprise and left members of the upper chamber of Congress mourning one of their colleagues.
Her brother’s death, which occurred late Saturday evening, was announced just after 2 a.m. on Sunday. The shock of his passing ripped through Washington, where Graham’s bipartisan nature led him to often form friendships and carry on negotiations with members in both parties. Having immediately followed a health scare involving Sen. Mitch McConnell, who remains hospitalized, Graham’s death also imperiled the slim GOP majority in the Senate, already thinned by McConnell’s absence.
Graham Nordone’s personal politics aren’t well known but given her near-instantaneous endorsement from Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune, President Trump and South Carolina’s other Republican senator, Tim Scott, it’s likely she’ll be a reliable vote for the GOP caucus and the White House.
The Senate is facing a number of key votes in the weeks to come, as it faces down the August recess and still hopes to pass a third legislative package through the budget reconcilation process, now seen as the only means of passing most of the GOP’s partisan priorities around the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold. This latest package is expected to include funding for Trump’s war with Iran, which was renewed last week after a round of Iranian strikes on tankers traversing the Strait of Hormuz.
Graham was an enthusiastic supporter of the war, and called frequently for the Trump administration to escalate its military campaign as a means of upping the pressure on Iran’s government over the months since the war began at the end of February. He repeatedly called for the U.S. to strike and occupy Kharg Island, a major hub of Iran’s oil industry, though he did not go as far as supporting some calls on the right for the U.S. to depose Iran’s government.
The late senator was a supporter of U.S. efforts to engage in global conflicts and enforce U.S. hegemony around the world. His death came just after his return from Ukraine, where the senator met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and urged further U.S. military and financial support for the Ukrainian government as it battles Russia’s four-year-long invasion.
His sister walks into a Senate GOP caucus divided over support for the president and adherence to the traditions of Capitol Hill, and one torn apart internally by election-year dynamics that have placed leadership at odds with the president more than once.
Republicans are defending a four-vote majority in the Senate this fall, a prospect once seen as a slam dunk for GOP leadership. The dynamic in the upper chamber quickly shifted under their feet, though, beginning with the retirement announcement of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) last year and ratcheting up significantly with the endorsements against two sitting incumbent Republican senators by the president this year.
Both of those senators, John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy, are now lame ducks in the GOP caucus — Graham Nordone will meet them as colleagues for the first time in what is already being dubbed by some Hill insiders as their “YOLO” era.
And while she isn’t expected to stand herself for the seat in November, Graham Nordone also wades in to the battle to succeed her brother in South Carolina, which will play out in a year where Donald Trump’s political brand is statistically at one of the lowest points measured since the January 6 attack in 2021.
