Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., holds his cellphone to the microphone so President Donald Trump could address the crowd at the state GOP's annual Silver Elephant Gala in Columbia on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. (File photo by Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — One of the Republicans trying to unseat U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham from his right flank dropped out Friday and endorsed another GOP challenger who’s pitched himself as a truer conservative.
The departure of Charleston attorney Paul Dans leaves Graham in a six-way GOP primary June 9. Three Democrats and three minor-party candidates also filed for the seat.
President Donald Trump, who endorsed Graham about a year ago, announced Dans’ decision before the candidate did.
Dans just dropped out “against the Great Lindsey Graham,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social about 30 minutes before Dans made his own announcement. “Lindsey has a BIG lead, and is on his way to a spectacular VICTORY because he just, GETS THINGS DONE!”
His post followed Dans turning in a two-sentence withdrawal statement to the state Election Commission, according to the time written on the page.
GOP field to unseat Sen. Graham doubled during filing. 12 candidates total want to replace him.
Asked for comment about losing an opponent, Graham’s spokesperson directed the SC Daily Gazette to the senator’s repost of Trump’s statement on X.
Graham topped the post by thanking the president for his support: “With your endorsement, I will not let the great people of South Carolina down!” he wrote.
Dans, who worked in the first Trump administration and had long pitched himself as a truer Trump loyalist than Graham, avoided criticizing the president in his response on X.
“Mr. President we here in South Carolina love you, but we don’t trust Lady Graham to help you put America first,” he wrote, repeating his disparaging nickname for Graham. He ended with an endorsement: “On June 9th Vote @MarkLynchSC.”
Mark Lynch, an Upstate furniture seller, “has the resources” to defeat Graham, he wrote. As of Dec. 31, Lynch had $4.5 million available, after loaning himself $5 million, according to his last quarterly fundraising report.
“I’m honored to have the endorsement of Paul Dans, who is a true patriot who puts his God, his family, and his country ahead of himself in the effort to remove childless warmonger Lindsey Graham,” Lynch said in a statement to the SC Daily Gazette. “Lindsey Graham has consistently failed the people he was elected to represent, and it’s time for new leadership.”
Lynch, who’s also campaigned as a better Trump ally, did not mention the president in his statement.
In another post this afternoon, Trump called Lynch a “LUNATIC” and said he would be a “DISASTER for the Republican party.”
In his Truth Social post, Trump bashed Dans for the endorsement he’d received from Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host and conservative podcaster. Both Dans and Carlson have been critics of the U.S. war with Iran. “It all started to fall apart for Paul when a very Low IQ individual named Tucker Carlson ENDORSED him — THE KISS OF DEATH!” Trump posted.
On Thursday, the president lashed out at Carlson and a number of other conservative podcasters who have criticized his war in Iran.
But Dans wrote that his departure had absolutely nothing to do with the endorsement of his “good friend” Carlson, which, he noted, he was honored to receive.
Dans, 56, launched his bid in July and had put over $351,567 of his own money into his campaign as of Dec. 31, according to his latest fundraising report.
The Charleston father of five is best known for his work on Project 2025, developed by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation. He led the development of the project’s database of potential staffers for a Republican administration who had been vetted for their loyalty to Trump and conservative principles.
He also edited the 900-page policy book, which called for dismantling federal agencies including the Department of Education, shrinking the federal workforce, and barring Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood.
Sen. Graham again calls for firings in 2 challengers’ campaigns over past antisemitic posts
In July 2024, Dans stepped down from the Heritage Foundation amid a ramp-up in Democratic attacks on the project. Trump had been working to distance himself from Project 2025.
Last week, Graham began bashing Dans and Lynch, his two most high-profile primary challengers, over posts made by campaign workers.
Vish Burra, a contractor for Dans, posted an animated video last year that likened Jews to cockroaches. He deleted the video a few hours later, but it reportedly got him fired from the One America News network, where he was a producer for “The Matt Gaetz Show,” a political talk show hosted by the former Florida congressman.
Dans told the Gazette on Tuesday that Graham was “slandering” Burra, and he would not be firing him.
Trump and Graham, 70, haven’t always had a good relationship.
During his own brief run for the White House in 2015, Graham called Trump a “kook” who’s “unfit for office.” After exiting the field in December 2015 ahead of South Carolina’s presidential primary, Graham remained an outspoken critic, saying in May 2016 he couldn’t vote for Trump.
But within months of Trump taking office in 2017, Graham was heaping praise on him, partly because of Trump’s tough stance against Iran.
Amid war in Iran, Graham and Trump have arguably never been closer. Graham has advocated for a direct confrontation with Iran for over a decade, saying from the outset that the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran wouldn’t stop the country from pursuing nuclear weapons. He was key to convincing Trump to strike.
At a news conference last month after he turned in his paperwork for re-election, Graham called himself one of Trump’s “closest friends, if not his closest friend in the Senate.”
Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
