RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 7 sourcesListen to this article with a free profile 00:00 00:00 Add to Google Trump tells voters to ‘pretend’ he is on the ballot ahead of South Carolina Senate runoff 01:51 Get more news Live on Share Add to Google Aug. 24, 2026, 5:18 PM EDT By The Politics Desk Welcome to From the Politics Desk , a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, Sahil Kapur digs into a key challenge for Sen. Darline Graham ahead of the South Carolina runoff. Plus, Allan Smith breaks down the shifting political landscape around data centers.
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — On Friday, a South Carolina Republican voter named Roger showed up to a Donald Trump and Darline Graham rally wearing a “DARK MAGA” T-shirt. He arrived early and waited hours to see the president speak.
But Trump’s endorsement wasn’t enough to convince him to vote for Graham in Tuesday’s high-stakes GOP runoff. Graham’s recent debate performance affected his perceptions after she said that “national security is not my thing” when asked if Taiwan and the South China Sea are U.S. national security issues.
“Her people should have briefed her a little bit more,” he said. “Foreign policy is something that — you’re going to come in as a new senator, as a rookie, you’re gonna have to learn that.”
Glenda Clinkscales , who said she “loves Trump” and was “excited” to see him, didn’t harbor the same feelings for Graham. Like Roger, she was undecided.
“Some good answers and some not so good answers,” she said when asked what she made of Graham’s debate performance. “I’m not so sure about her right now.”
The hesitation by the two Trump supporters casts a cloud over Graham’s prospects for a six-year term as she faces five-term Rep. Ralph Norman , R-S.C.
Another voter, Daniel Musick of Myrtle Beach, labeled Trump “the best president we’ve ever had.” He had made up his mind for Norman even before watching Trump and Graham at the rally.
“It’s just that she’s untested. I don’t know enough about her,” he said, adding that “part of the reason” for his opposition to Graham is her debate moment. “Her answer on foreign affairs, when it came to China and Taiwan — it was really unclear that she knew her foreign policy, and to me that was the biggest issue.”
Norman has sought to capitalize on her debate blunder, but it’s not clear he is on the path to victory. Norman is 73, at a time when age is an issue for voters, and has been accused by Graham’s team of being insufficiently loyal to Trump as a member of the House Freedom Caucus that seeks to push his agenda to the right.
Graham, 62, has defended her debate moment by saying voters in South Carolina aren’t asking her about China and Taiwan.
“Now the critics say I shouldn’t run for the Senate. They say I’m not a politician. You know what I say? Guilty as charged,” Graham said at Friday’s rally with Trump. “And by the way, President Trump had never served in an elected office before, and I think he’s done a damn good job.”
Trump, for his part, said Graham was just “being honest” in the debate.
“I mean, she’s going to do what the military wants, and really what the president wants,” Trump told reporters Friday before the rally.
To other GOP voters who attended Friday’s event, Trump’s support was enough.
“Honestly, I don’t know as much about the platforms there, but if Trump supports her, I do too,” said Lynn Spivey , who was wearing a Darline Graham sticker.
📱Related: MAGA Inc., the super PAC tied to Trump, has spent $830,000 on text messages and voter phone calls to boost Graham, Bridget Bowman reports .
As recently as last month, Republicans in some of this fall’s biggest races publicly expressed skepticism about the growing backlash to data center development.
A lot has changed since then. On Thursday , former Rep. Mike Rogers, the GOP nominee for Senate in Michigan, announced support for a one-year moratorium on data center development. In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania , Republican nominees for governor cut ads hitting their Democratic rivals for being too open to the projects.
Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott , who had welcomed the developments to his state and faces re-election this fall, ordered an audit of data center projects in the state before any more can advance. And in Ohio, GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy released a plan stating that any future data center built in the state must pay the electricity bills and property taxes for nearby residents, adding that he will sign an executive order pausing development until such a plan is enacted into law.
Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee wrote a memo last week for data center industry leaders detailing how in Ohio’s Senate race, the issue is single-handedly tearing down Republican Sen. Jon Husted as his Democratic rival, former Sen. Sherrod Brown , spends millions on anti-data center ads.
Data centers are one of the few issues in American politics that don’t fall along neat ideological lines. Both parties are rapidly trying to figure out what approach works best for them at the national, state and local levels. Democrats, including some who previously offered the industry a warm embrace, are similarly positioning to be seen as champions for data center accountability and tightly regulated growth as progressives angle for state and federal moratoriums on their development.
But the challenge is equally, if not more, daunting for Republicans, who have worked to build stronger relationships with tech leaders after they gravitated to President Donald Trump during his last presidential bid. And they’re campaigning as Trump himself has promoted the benefits of data center development needed to power the growth of AI.
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.
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