I will back any American First patriot running against a RINO. I don’t care if doing so could “damage” the RINO’s chances of beating the Democrat. We cannot continue to lose while repeating the old adage, “Vote conservative in the primary, vote Republican in the general.”

We need some real victories or this nation will not recover from the damage that’s been done by The Swamp for seven decades. That’s why I’m very interested in the story below by Mary Lou Masters with Daily Caller News Foundation. I’d take just about any Republican over Lindsey Graham. Ralph Norman isn’t just any Republican. He’s a conservative. Here’s Mary Lou…

GOP Rep Considers Challenging Lindsey Graham in 2026 Senate Primary: REPORT

South Carolina GOP Rep. and House Freedom Caucus member Ralph Norman is weighing a 2026 Senate bid to challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham in the Republican primary, according to Politico.

Graham has served in the upper chamber since 2003 and has repeatedly beat out primary challengers, but was booed on July 1 by his own constituents at a rally for former President Donald Trump. Conservatives now see an opportunity for another Republican to emerge in 2026 and have been discussing a potential bid with Norman, a source familiar with the matter told Politico.

“Rep. Norman is not ruling anything out but has made no decisions yet on future elections,” a spokesperson for Norman told the Daily Caller News Foundations in a statement. “He remains firmly committed to serving South Carolina’s 5th district in the House, and doing everything within his ability to restore fiscal sanity and conservative values to Congress.”

Conservatives have grown frustrated with Graham for his moderate position on key issues, most recently his devout support for Ukraine in the war with Russia, and several Trump allies argue the senator isn’t loyal, according to Politico.

The two South Carolinians have attended events together, and Norman endorsed Graham in 2019 during the most recent Senate primary, according to Politico. Graham went on to beat three Republican primary challengers in 2020, according to Greenville News.

“No one has done more than Lindsey Graham to confirm President Trump’s conservative judges and help rebuild our military. That’s why we need Lindsey Graham re-elected to the United States Senate,” Norman said in 2019, per Greenville News.

Graham also beat now Republican Rep. Nancy Mace in the 2014 Senate primary, but none of the senator’s previous GOP challengers have held the degree of name recognition that Norman has, according to Politico.

Graham has endorsed Trump for president in 2024 because he “was a good president,” but was a vocal opponent of the then-candidate’s 2016 bid, arguing “if the Republican Party nominates Donald Trump, they will destroy themselves and they will deserve it.”

Norman isn’t backing the former president for the 2024 primary, and instead threw his support behind former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley when she announced her campaign in February.

Prior to his time in the Senate, Graham served in the state legislature before winning a U.S. House seat in the late 1990s, according to Ballotpedia. Norman, who is currently running for reelection in 2024, has been in Congress since 2017 when he won the special election to replace outgoing Rep. Mick Mulvaney, and previously served in the South Carolina state House.

Neither Graham nor Norman immediately responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat who has served as Newsom’s deputy since 2019, will run for governor in the 2026 election, she announced on Twitter. The 57-year-old Democrat has been a staunch Newsom ally, working with him on a raft of progressive policies as he has carved out a national profile.

Kounalakis was elected alongside Newsom, himself a former two-term lieutenant governor, in 2019. She previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary during the Obama administration as well as the president of AKT Development Corporation, California’s largest housing development firm founded by her father, who was a major financial backer for her lieutenant gubernatorial campaign, according to The Sacramento Bee.

Unlike Newsom, Kounalakis has had a decidedly lower profile in state and national politics. However, while independently elected from Newsom, she publicly supported his aggressive efforts to promote California as an “abortion sanctuary” after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, restrict access to firearms, and study whether the state should pay reparations to African Americans for slavery, according to her campaign website.

Newsom is term-limited by the California Constitution and cannot run in 2026, though he has not announced whether he would support Kounalakis’ candidacy.

Kounalakis is known to be a strong political ally of Vice President Kamala Harris, having joined her 2020 presidential campaign and advocated among donors for her selection as then-candidate Joe Biden’s running mate, according to Politico.

Kounalakis’ decision to announce her campaign over three years before the election is influenced by California’s large size and population as well as its expensive media markets. Newsom himself began his 2018 campaign for governor in 2015.

During Kounalakis’ time in office, California has seen a significant population exodus, with an 871,127 net decline, according to CalMatters, a state-based investigative group. Many analysts have attributed that drop to the state’s progressive policies, with Democrats holding supermajorities in both chambers of the state Legislature and Democratic governors having led the state since 2010.

Departing residents and businesses have cited California’s high levels of urban crime and high cost of living as primary reasons for leaving. The average price of a home in California is $843,800, the most expensive in the United States according to Redfin, a real estate brokerage firm, while the state’s violent crime rate increased by 6% in 2021, per the Public Policy Institute of California.

If elected, Kounalakis would become the first woman governor of the state. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].