When the runoff election between Sen. Darline Graham and U.S. Rep Ralph Norman, R-5th, ended in August, Norman garnered 175,412 votes from Republican voters statewide.
More than half those votes -- 57% -- came from 12 counties, entirely in the Upstate.
Norman, a native of Rock Hill, is a member of the U.S. House Freedom Caucus. He’s a deep-red conservative who made his fortune -- Capitol Markets ranked him the 19th richest member of the House in August -- in real estate development, mainly in York County.
His platform of fiscal and social conservativism during his failed bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination that ultimately went to Alan Wilson proved popular among Upstate conservatives, who carried nearly two-thirds in his primary votes.
That election buoyed Norman’s profile in the state. By the time the special GOP primary to succeed the late Lindsey Graham in the U.S. Senate came along, Norman had connected with Upstate voters --particularly in Greenville County, where Norman’s 32,906 votes in the Aug. 25 runoff more than doubled Darline Graham’s vote get in the county.
Enter Write In Ralph, described by its creator, Greenville native Avery Milton, as a “truly grassroots campaign” to reach voters who connected with Norman’s brand of conservatism. With “ literally just $10 out of my pocket,” Milton launched WriteInRalph.com because he wanted to do something “ to make some type of difference.”
The context
Following the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Henry McMaster, according to a South Carolina custom, appointed Graham’s sister, Darline, to finish her brother’s term, which ends in January.
But what started as a ceremonial appointment took on much greater weight when President Donald Trump endorsed Graham to run for a full Senate term. Graham defeated Norman in a close GOP runoff race. Since, Trump has visited South Carolina twice -- and will do so for a third time on Thursday -- to stump for Graham.
The rub
Trump’s backing of Graham has rubbed some conservatives the wrong way. Milton says the president weighing in so heavily on her candidacy, including financially, was misplaced.
“There was just so much pressure and so much institutional backing behind one candidate that it kind of made it unfair to anyone else in the race,” Milton says.
He says Graham’s campaign has turned the race into a Trump-centered slate focused on national issues. And that, he says, is where some conservatives in the Norman vein are bristling.
“ We've been asking her to reach out to disgruntled conservative voters and try to earn our vote,” he says. “The only thing we really hear from her is national Republican talking points. It just doesn't seem genuine, what she's preaching.”
The microcosm
Milton sees Graham’s focus on national issues as a microcosm of the Republican party’s disconnect with conservatives nationally.
“ They're not talking about the kitchen table issues,” he says. “They're talking about radical Islam -- and these are problems, but it's not what people want to talk about. It's not what people are trying to think about -- how they're going to fill up their next tank of gas, things like this. If you're not focused on these issues, you're really out of touch, and I think that's kind of what we are seeing play out.”
One of the words factoring prominently in discussions about the 2026 midterms is “establishment,” which has shown itself to be a liability in races everywhere. Graham, sister of one of the most powerful members of the Senate -- who served for almost 24 years -- represents that word to Milton.
“I hate to keep using this word establishment, and it sounds so cliché, but there really is a political class of people who are so out of touch with their voter base,” he says. “[And] they have shoved this candidate down our throats, and that's how we feel, and that's why we bucked this and started this [write-in] campaign to begin with.”
The if
No one, including Avery Milton, expects Ralph Norman to win a U.S Senate seat from a write-in campaign. Norman himself has distanced his name from the effort to write him in.
But a few things are in play that could make Election Night interesting for the Senate race. One is that Norman stated on a recent podcast episode of The National Briefing with Kelly Nash that his family will not support Graham, even if he will vote for her.
But Norman also has urged voters to “vote their conscience,” and has not made any overtures towards supporting the Graham campaign.
Two is that a New York Times poll on the Senate race in South Carolina, released Wednesday, shows a dead heat between Graham and Democratic candidate Annie Andrews. Around this time in October of 2020, a Times poll on the race between Lindsey Graham and Democratic challenger Jamie Harrison had the then-incumbent Republican up by six points. Graham won in 2020 by 10 points.
Three is that support for Andrews in the 2026 midterms is ramping up, including endorsements from former South Carolina Governors Jim Hodges, a Democrat, and David Beasley, a Republican. Norman’s son, Warren, has also stated publicly that he prefers Andrews to Graham.
Graham’s biggest supporter, on the other hand, is Trump, who has visited South Carolina twice within a week to stump for her. His latest visit, Thursday, is to Rock Hill, Norman’s hometown, and a massive support base for the outgoing congressman.
The “if” in all this is that if enough conservatives swayed by Norman’s style of conservativism, and his tepid support for Graham are convinced to write his name onto the ballot -- or if enough conservative voters feel compelled to just sit this one out -- the effect could propel Andrews to the U.S. Senate and flip a seat that has been reliably red for decades.
The larger picture
The effectiveness of Milton’s grassroots effort to write in Norman is, in the middle of early voting, impossible to track. Milton says his website “went from virtually nothing to exploding. It's in breakout of over, like, 5,000%. The fact that we're even still talking about it [so close to] the election is also a huge indicator as to how people are feeling about this.”
Parts of the Republican party are talking about it too.
“York Co Republicans were big supporters of Ralph Norman in the Senate Republican special primary runoff (polled 90+ % among our membership),” wrote York County GOP Chairman Scott Anderson in an email to South Carolina Public Radio. “So, naturally, we were disappointed with the outcome.”
“That said,” Anderson continued, “we wholeheartedly support the Republican nominee. The Write-In campaign, while I am sure is supported by some Republicans in good faith who were similarly disappointed in the results, is now CLEARLY being co-opted by the Annie for Senate campaign and their supporters who see it as a way to draw support from the duly elected Republican nominee.”
Milton refutes that his movement has been co-opted by the political left.
“A lot of people accuse this write-in for Ralph movement about being Democrat backed and stuff like that,” he says. “But they got what they wanted already. They got Darlene.”
He adds: “What's frustrating is, the whole argument that they have against the write-in is, it's a de facto vote for Annie. I think it's just unfair because if we really wanted to do that, we would just be voting for Annie. But we're not. We're voting for Ralph Norman, and that vote counts for him.”
But other GOP leaders at the county level are at least supporting Milton’s efforts to make a statement.
“Every vote counts,” says Oconee County GOP Chairman Barry Sanders.
Sanders says the Write-In Ralph movement is laying bare a reality in the Republican party that has been building for a long time.
“This is a group that’s been taken for granted for years,” he says of conservative voters who don’t automatically support the Republican docket simply because Trump has told them to.
Sanders says he supports Trump, but not the idea that other kinds of conservatives have nothing to say. He calls the Senate race “a referendum on the South Carolina Republican party,” and says that the real problem is that there are conservatives who want things that the mainstream party is tuning out.
“Without conversation,” Sanders says, “conservatives feel like they’re being taken for granted.”
Scott Huffmon, director of the Winthrop University Poll, says this theme is at the root of the write-in movement.
“ I think a lot of the write-in Ralph Norman's name is about frustration with the process,” Huffmon says. “A lot of the really conservative folks in leadership positions, in the counties and in the local areas, feel like they're being walked over, that their choices are being made for them.”
Huffmon says he’s not convinced that the write-in movement will sway much of the election, but he does admit that its supporters are among the most engaged voters on the right.
“Because so many of the people who are saying they're going to write in Ralph's name are the most passionate conservatives,” he says, “you have to think that they won't do something that's going to threaten their party. If a lot of them do it, that would mean many of them said, ‘I'm willing to punish the Republican party at the risk of letting a Democrat win in order to make my point.’”
Huffmon says that in talks with some of Winthrop’s conservative students, he’s found that they back Graham and are confident in her chances.
Sanders, on the other hand, sees grayer skies for Republicans next Tuesday.
“Unless something happen quickly, it’s going to be a long nigh come November third,” he says.
Sanders says he’s provided space in the county GOP’s online accounts for open discussion, and that he’s been met with calls to step down and attempts to derail conversations that include alternatives to where the party is at the moment
For her part, Andrews addressed the Write-in Ralph movement following a campaign top in Greenville Tuesday.
“I think that’s South Carolinians who we know have an independent streak rejecting this premise that Washington, D.C., is going to pick our next senator," Andrews told Fox Carolina.” And I respect what Ralph Norman said, that you should vote your conscience.”
The young
Milton, who roundly supported Trump in his bids for the presidency, says he’s been disillusioned by Trump in this second term, and that he’s spoken with numerous conservatives in the Upstate who feel the same. He says the larger picture is a lot about promises not delivered.
“ The first and foremost is ‘No More Wars,’” he says of Trump’s 2024 campaign pledge. “He repeatedly campaigned on no more wars, and there's a joke that he actually meant ‘No, comma, more wars!’”
Milton says he does not believe Darline Graham is up to the job and has even come to respect Andrews, whom he feels has a more defined -- and, importantly, South Carolina-focused -- platform.
“ Even though I disagree with a lot of Annie Andrews' platform, I still know more about her as a person,” he says. “She at least is getting out there and speaking from what I see as the heart. And she’s representing herself, and I just don't see that from Darline.”
And, Milton says, something that’s been bothering him about Graham’s presence in the race is that no one let her grieve her brother’s death; that she got pushed into a position that serves larger political ends at her expense.
“ I see it as people that just took advantage of her at a time like that,” Milton says. “I don't think it's right.”
Milton says the political undercurrents -- particularly among younger conservatives --rolling through the Upstate, and their potential effect on the 20206 midterms, are mirroring what’s happening in other states that have been reliably red. States like Kentucky and Ohio.
“ I would say a lot of more younger conservative people are feeling left out from this current GOP platform,” he says. “And I feel like a lot of us voted for something that was promised and wasn't given. This is showing its face through this write-in, but there's other movements around the country.”
He goes back to the word “establishment.”
“ I think it's the old guard establishment, which a lot of us thought Trump was against, but it seems more and more he's become absorbed into that realm,” Milton says. “I think that's a good indicator of what's going on.”
