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Avery Milton, a 28-year-old voter from South Carolina, previously supported Donald Trump in three presidential elections. Ahead of the midterm elections, however, Milton feels betrayed by the president and is helping lead a grassroots effort to write in Republican Congressman Ralph Norman for the US Senate instead of backing the party’s official nominee, Senator Darline Graham, who holds Trump’s endorsement.
A Broken Alliance and the Write-In Movement
Milton told Al Jazeera that Trump stabbed his supporters in the back during his second term, pointing particularly to the war on Iran as a breaking point after Trump campaigned on avoiding new wars. This disillusionment is shared by other younger conservatives in the state who are entering the workforce and starting families. Rather than support Graham, Milton and other supporters built a website and launched a public platform for the Write-In Ralph movement.
A write-in candidate is a person whose name does not appear on the ballot but can be chosen by voters who write it in manually. Such campaigns are typically used to express dissatisfaction with official candidates and rarely result in victories. One notable exception occurred in 2010 when Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska won after launching a write-in campaign following her primary loss. Write-in votes accounted for just 0.1 percent of all votes cast in the 2002 South Carolina Senate race.
Milton explained to Al Jazeera that supporters want an independent senator rather than a rubber stamp for party leadership. Despite facing potential blame if Democrats win, Milton rejected that notion, telling Al Jazeera that it incorrectly assumes those protest votes would have automatically gone to Graham.
Graham’s Path and Conservative Tensions
Darline Graham was appointed to serve out the remaining term of her older brother, US Senator Lindsey Graham, following his sudden death on July 11. She became the first sibling appointed to fill a Senate vacancy, a role she initially described as a chance to finish her brother’s work. Days later, Trump posted “RUN, DARLINE, RUN!” on Truth Social and promised his endorsement, prompting Graham to announce her run on Fox News three days afterward.
Milton described the appointment as an effective installation of a candidate. Graham subsequently defeated Republican Ralph Norman in the August primary elections. Norman, who represents South Carolina’s fifth congressional district, has declined to campaign alongside Graham after his primary defeat and told The Wall Street Journal that she had not earned the vote.
Tensions remain high in Upstate South Carolina, where Norman holds strong support. Milton told Al Jazeera that Graham made little effort to reach everyday people in the region, relying instead on private dinners and appearances with Trump. John Connolly, a 77-year-old retiree living in the Lowcountry, told Al Jazeera that he views Graham as a puppet who simply nods her head when told to.
A Competitive Race in a Deep-Red State
Independent voters represent a significant bloc in South Carolina, where 30 percent of likely voters identified as independents in an October New York Times/Siena poll, leading Graham by 20 percentage points among that group. Leila Ali, a regional campaign adviser, told Al Jazeera that strategists often underestimate the diversity of the Southern electorate. Engagement is visible in early voting numbers, with nearly 950,000 early votes cast according to the state’s Election Commission, setting a new record for a midterm election in South Carolina.
Trump has made two trips to the state in three months to campaign for Graham. Meanwhile, the October poll showed Graham and Democratic challenger Annie Andrews tied at 48 percent among likely voters, giving Democrats a rare opening in a state that has not elected a Democratic US senator since 1998.
