Businessman Mark Lynch is surging against longtime incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) ahead of the May primary in South Carolina, a new poll provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its public release shows.
On an initial ballot, Graham is well under 50 percent down at just 41 percent while Lynch has moved up to 21 percent. A third candidate, Paul Dans, is at 11 percent and 22 percent are unsure.
“Lindsey Graham is in real trouble in this solidly pro-Trump primary,” the polling memo states. “When South Carolina Republican voters learn the candidates’ records, they shift sharply to conservative challenger Mark Lynch. With a large undecided pool and strong Trump alignment on border security and America First issues, Lynch is well-positioned to win the nomination and the seat.”
Those numbers alone should worry the entrenched establishment senator, but when respondents are given extra information about the candidates the picture gets even worse for Graham, who falls double digits behind Lynch. On an informed ballot, the poll shows Lynch at 34 percent and Graham down at 23 percent—while Dans remains at 11 percent and there are more unsure voters at 26 percent.
The poll was conducted for the Lynch campaign by Pulse Opinion Research using Rasmussen Reports licensed methodology. It surveyed 1,000 likely GOP primary voters in South Carolina from March 11 to 17 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percent.
President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Graham despite their nasty history, enjoys a high approval rating of 72 percent among the respondents—41 percent strongly approve of Trump. It’s worth noting that Trump endorsed Graham early in this race and has not done much with him since then campaign-wise, but Trump was not always a fan of Graham. For instance, back in the 2016 campaign, he said Graham could not even win a dog-catcher race in South Carolina:
Mark Mitchell, the head pollster of Rasmussen Reports, said in the polling memo that these numbers are embarrassingly bad for Graham and that Lynch has a “huge opportunity” if he can close the race strong.
“I’ve polled quite a few races like this in the ’26 cycle and Lindsey Graham is one of the weakest incumbents I’ve seen,” Mitchell said. “Despite the name ID advantage, Mark Lynch takes a clear lead on the informed ballot. This is a huge opportunity.”
One of the advantages that Lynch has as opposed to Dans—the other challenger in the race—is that Lynch has a small fortune he can spend on his own race. He’s already spent north of a million dollars to get to this place in the race, and sources familiar with his plans say that over the next two months or so until the primary he intends to spent at least another $3.5 million. If that is how this pans out and works out and if this polling data from Rasmussen Reports is remotely close to correct, then Lynch could have a shot to turn the tides here and accomplish turning that actual ballot into the informed ballot in this data. South Carolina sources tell Breitbart News that Graham is taking the threat from Lynch seriously, and has launched attack ads against him on television in the state.
