Some political predictions are gimmes. Others are wildcards.
In the “gimme” category, recognizing Karoline Leavitt as the GOAT of White House press secretaries was obvious within her first few weeks: She was heads and shoulders above her predecessors. It wasn’t just what she said; it was how she said it.
Honestly? I’m surprised it took others longer to recognize her talents. She’s a legit prodigy.
Same goes for identifying the skill set of Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Tex.), the youngest Republican currently in Congress: He’s destined for bigger and better things, and if you don’t see it, you don’t understand American politics.
He’s gonna be a superstar, too.
(In fact, there’s an excellent argument to be made for picking Gill as the next White House press secretary: It would give a talented, charismatic prospect extra face time before the cameras — Gill’s strength is winning back-and-forth exchanges, after all — and he’s clearly a prospect worth investing in. The downside is that he’d have to resign from Congress, but for his own career trajectory, being the #1 press secretary is better than being one of 435 members of the House.)
But predicting special elections without polling data? That’s a wildcard.
Too many variables — especially open primaries during odd times of the year, which are notoriously unpredictable. That’s because left-wing activists can vote in Republican primaries for reasons that are, ahem, “strategically helpful” for the Democratic Party.
Don’t get me wrong: I stand by my prediction that Darline Graham’s gaffe-tastic debate performance has put her Senate campaign in a death spiral, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she loses by double digits. That’s based on her winning just 32.74% of the vote in the first primary (hey, when 67% of the vote goes against the incumbent, that ain’t bueno), Graham’s lead over Ralph Norman being just eight points, and projecting how her God-awful debate answers will be highlighted on TV, print, and (most of all) digital media.
The election is in just four days. If she had another month, she could reset the narrative, but there’s not enough time: The story of her (multiple) gaffes — and what they imply about her intelligence, preparedness, and capacity to legislate — will reach an apex on Election Day.
Which means it’ll get worse before it gets better.
All the oxygen has been sucked out of the room. There’s not enough bandwidth for Graham’s rebuttal to sway audiences before they vote.
(And by the way, if Graham’s team really, truly believed she was the frontrunner, whoever green-lit a debate ONE WEEK before the election should receive a lifetime ban from Republican politics. What a stupid decision!)
So the end is nigh for Darline Nordone Graham. Her campaign is over. Stick a fork in her, folks: She’s done.
But as ESPN’s Lee Corso used to say, “Not so fast, my friend!” It turns out that the incumbent senator had one final card to play — a literal Trump card.
In modern-day politics, nobody has successfully reset the narrative more than President Donald J. Trump!
And now Donald Trump is traveling to Myrtle Beach on Friday to campaign with Darline Graham, hoping his endorsement will carry her to victory. In doing so, he’s putting his own credibility on the line.
Trump is set to hold a rally Friday night in Myrtle Beach with Sen. Darline Graham, whom he endorsed for her late brother’s Senate seat and whose campaign was shaken by a recent debate when she couldn’t answer a question about Taiwan and the South China Sea because she was “not that informed about national security.”
Both Trump and Graham are at a crucial moment. Some stalwart supporters of the president are openly rejecting his pick in Tuesday’s Republican primary runoff, despite a strong effort by the White House that included Trump calling old rivals to push them to endorse her.
A defeat in South Carolina would further call into question the second-term president’s ability to keep his party ranks in line.
Mick Mulvaney, a political veteran who served in South Carolina’s General Assembly, the U.S. House of Representatives, and as President Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget (plus acting chief of staff), said Myrtle Beach was the perfect host city. But he questioned if Trump’s endorsement will be sufficient.
“Myrtle Beach is the exact correct place for them to go. It is the heart of Russell Fry’s district and home to probably the largest population of persuadable voters that we expect will be voting,” said Mick Mulvaney, who served in Trump’s first administration and represented South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District in the House. [Fry endorsed Graham after finishing third in the GOP primary.]
“Trump will obviously carry a lot of weight. But how much remains to be seen. Polling indicates that maybe only 40 percent of voters put a lot of weight on his endorsement,” he continued.
“That, combined with her astonishingly poor performance in the debate earlier this week, may make this race much closer than people realize,” he said.
[…]
“Without Trump, Darline wouldn’t have a chance,” Mulvaney said. “And by that, I mean she’d be polling at very low, single digits.” [emphasis added]
That’s the power of the presidency: Overnight, the president can turn a no-hoper into a contender. His endorsement is so prestigious, the recipient can rise from near-total anonymity to the precipice of the highest offices in the land.
Including people who flat-out don’t deserve it
Are you a Samuel Alito fan? None other than the Yale Law Journal dubbed him “the court’s most consistent conservative.” He was one of President George W. Bush’s most consequential decisions.
Alito is possibly President Bush’s greatest, most significant conservative legacy.
And it happened totally by accident: People forget, but Alito wasn’t Bush’s first choice.
Originally, Bush nominated a woman named Harriet Miers, who was, by (almost) all accounts, a kind, competent, capable attorney — and spectacularly unqualified to serve on the Supreme Court.
She was an effective White House counsel. She was a loyal conservative. She was a proud Texan. But she wasn’t an expert on Constitutional law, and when she was questioned by the Senate, even the Republicans were stunned by her lack of preparation. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told her privately that she had “flunked” her answers.
Robert Bork called her a “disaster” and a “slap in the face to conservatives who’ve been building a conservative legal movement for the last 20 years.”
Yet consider how President Bush defended her nomination: “I know her heart.” He hoped vouching for her character — his personal testimonial — would be sufficient.
It’s eerily similar to how President Trump is defending Darline Graham: “She’s a very good woman.”
But the reality is, having a good heart — or being a good woman — isn’t enough. This is the political Big Leagues, boys and girls! D.C. is a never-ending pressure cooker — an unholy cesspool of greed, corruption, egos, and backstabbing. It’s the land of sharks and minnows.
That means that if you’re not a shark, you’re gonna be eaten.
Putting Miers on the Supreme Court would’ve been a catastrophe. Even if she pinky-promised to vote with conservatives, it still would’ve been the wrong thing to do.
She lacked the “intellectual firewall” to protect herself from the predators, plunderers, and political parasites. At best, she would’ve been a conservative version of Ketanji Brown Jackson; at worst, she would eventually “go native” in D.C., à la John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter.
(Don’t ever underestimate the seductive allure of Washington’s cocktail parties. Even staunch conservatives have succumbed to it.)
Right now, Darline Graham is Donald Trump’s Harriet Miers.
I’m glad she’s completing her big brother’s Senate term. It’s a wonderful tribute. But it simply isn’t acceptable for a senator to be “not that informed on national security” five weeks after being sworn in.
Especially in a state like South Carolina, with roughly 400,000 military veterans and seven major bases.
That’s not taking your job seriously. Either Graham didn’t do her homework, or she’s struggling (for whatever reason) to learn the basics.
It’s simply not good enough.
President Trump could make her a contender, but it’s beyond his scope to make her competent.
But there’s a silver lining: Miers’ failure led directly to Sam Alito — President Bush’s finest decision.
Interestingly, after Miers “flunked” her answers, none other than Sen. Lindsey Graham greased the wheels of her exit: He sent a letter to President Bush, asking for legal memoranda and briefs that Miers had prepared for the White House.
Sen. Graham — who DID understand the political/legal process — knew her memos were protected by executive privilege. Thus, Miers could use Graham’s request as an excuse to withdraw from her Supreme Court nomination.
Which she cited in her letter to President Bush:
As you know, members of the Senate have indicated their intention to seek documents about my service in the White House in order to judge whether to support me. I have been informed repeatedly that in lieu of records, I would be expected to testify about my service in the White House to demonstrate my experience and judicial philosophy. While I believe that my lengthy career provides sufficient evidence for consideration of my nomination, I am convinced the efforts to obtain Executive Branch materials and information will continue.
Darline Graham couldn’t orchestrate a political maneuver like this. She doesn’t know how.
But hopefully, Ralph Norman will.
And hopefully, he’ll be just as great in the Senate as Justice Alito is on the Supreme Court.
One Last Thing: 2026 will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the future of our country teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Blue wave or red wall, one way or another the 2026 midterms will transform our country.
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