Darline Graham abruptly exited after a series of gaffes.
South Carolina Senator Darline Graham was arrested fleeing the scene after her lackluster performance in the debate.
Graham debated Dr. Annie Andrews, a Democrat, as the two men raced to become the state’s next senator. After the debate ended, Graham appeared to flee the stage, choosing not to speak to reporters and trying to “present” his performance as a victory, as is typical of candidates and their surrogates after debates.
Still, his campaign tried to present his abrupt departure as some sort of victory.
“Debate winners don’t usually come to the spin room,” his spokesperson TWArrighi told reporters after the affair.
TW Arrighi, Darline Graham’s campaign spokesperson, was left to his own devices.
While candidates will always send surrogates to go to the “spin room,” the candidates themselves will sometimes show their faces after a debate. Candidates usually do this when they feel they have won the debate and want to tout what they see as successes.
For example, then-candidate Donald Trump went straight to the press room, where reporters talk to surrogates, to speak to reporters himself after his disastrous debate against then-Vice President Kamala Harris. While most strategists agreed that Harris won this debate, Trump, who never concedes a race, tried to set the record straight himself and called it “the best debate I’ve ever had.”
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And most recently, both Michigan Senate candidates, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers, defended themselves in the press room after their recent debate.
But objectively, the debate didn’t go very well for Graham, the younger sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, who repeatedly stumbled over her answers and appeared to struggle during some lines of questioning.
Some of his lines of attack fell flat.
Andrews, 45, tried to focus on the idea that Graham, 62, is simply the choice of Trump, who reiterated that she has his “complete and total support” in the race.
She particularly focused on a comment Graham made during the primary debate for the Republican nomination, in which she said: “National security is not my thing.” »
“If your surgeon said appendectomies aren’t really his thing, would you still give him a scalpel? No,” Andrews said. “So why would we give Darline Graham a full term in the United States Senate? She is neither serious nor qualified.”
Although it wasn’t as bad as the previous debate, this debate didn’t go particularly well for Graham.
Although she largely avoided another gaffe like she did during the primary debate, Graham appeared awkward on stage as she struggled to refine her lines of attack for Andrews.
And in typical MAGA fashion, many of his claims didn’t seem entirely true.
“Let us not forget, once again, how the war began,” Graham proclaimed. “The Democrats almost let Iran get a nuclear weapon. They were close to getting one.”
Although debates don’t seem to be a strong point for Graham, Trump has had nothing but praise for her since he picked her to take the seat after the death of his brother.
Regarding her gaffe, he excused her and explained that she made her comments because she “understands that national security is my thing.”
Trump has been Darline’s biggest political supporter since he came onto the scene following the sudden death of his brother.
“She’s very smart and she was honest. She cares about the price of groceries. … She’s going to do what the military wants, and really what the president wants,” Trump said at the time.
He spoke about her numerous times on Truth Social, calling her a “spectacular person” and a “true American patriot,” among other Trumpian compliments.
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