Darline Graham’s inherited Senate seat revives the ‘widow’s mandate’ with a sibling twist

Darline Graham, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, has become the first woman to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate. Appointed by Governor Henry McMaster in July to fill the remainder of her brother's term, she then finished first in a ten-candidate Republican primary with nearly thirty-three percent of the vote, and now faces a runoff against Congressman Ralph Norman. As The Conversation tells it, her path revives the 'widow's mandate' tradition of family succession, but with a sibling twist — and it shows how a familiar political name still carries weight in American elections.

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