Critics are calling Trump’s new Senate pick a political novice. Seven years of South Carolina agency records tell a different story. “Deep dives” from local politicos and journalists are skimming the surface of the political landscape without even paying attention to the fact that there is a real record here. Ms. Graham’s is a career spent growing government and seeking out increasing amounts of federal dollars, overseen by a board that meets less and less.
It’s worth noting that official documents (property records, salary information, etc.) list her as Darline Graham, not Nordone. Property ownership is listed as Larry A. Nordone and Darline Graham.
On Friday, President Trump urged Darline Graham to enter the August 11, 2026 Special Republican Primary for the US Senate, a seat left open when her brother, Lindsey Graham, died suddenly last week. Trump pledged his “Complete and Total Endorsement” if she runs. Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Graham to serve out the remainder of the term and was sworn in on July 14. She has been touted as the first woman to represent South Carolina in the Senate. Multiple news outlets, including ABC, reported over the weekend that she had “privately” considered running for the senate full term and it was confirmed on July 20 that Darline will seek a full term. As soon as McMaster tapped Darline, the criticism was perfunctory: she has never held public office.
The Insider They Call an Outsider
This claim that Darline Graham has never held public office is false. For the last seven years Ms. Graham has run a state agency, and the paper trail from that agency paints a very clear picture of how she is likely to govern in the absence of a campaign résumé. After analyzing the agency Darline oversees, it is clear that she views her job as a means to expand government. The word skyrocket comes to mind when one looks at her budgets, hiring, the federal dollars she pursues, and even her own pay. This is a far cry from the “political outsider” card being played by the mass media.
Let’s start with money appropriated from state funds. When Graham took over the South Carolina Commission for the Blind (SCCB) in 2019, the agency was receiving $3,547,103 in state general funds. The Recapitulation for the 2026-2027 budget places this amount for 2025-2026 at $7,005,084, exceeding the $6,933,199 it was actually budgeted for 2025-2026. The proposed budget which has not yet passed would increase that amount to $7,671,393. That’s a 95%+ increase in seven short years. Even after inflation, the state’s share has grown by more than half.
The agency’s total budget has grown faster still, from $12.6 million in 2018-2019 to a proposed $91.4 million next year. Most of that total is Department of Defense money from a Fort Jackson dining contract that passes through the agency to the a blind vendor who operates the military dining halls. The agency’s finance director told the board the pass-through “could exceed $75 million” this year and stated flatly that “the agency does not use these funds for its operations.”
This article is not a criticism of government services provided to the blind, but rather an honest questioning of future adherence to conservative principles by a former agency head who has demonstrated the opposite during her tenure as Commissioner of the SC Commission for the Blind.
An Agency That Doubled
In just under a year, the agency headcount rose from 91 full-time employees in March 2025 to 127 as of February 2026. Additionally, Graham created a new Deputy Commissioner position this year. Her requests for the upcoming budget total include $553,301 in recurring funds, and she also asked lawmakers for over $7 million in expanded authority to spend “the actual amounts of the federal grant awards” the agency receives. [Source: SCCB Presentation to House Ways & Means Healthcare Subcommittee on Tuesday, January 27, 2026 at 12pm] In February she announced her election as President of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind, a national perch she told her board she will have an opportunity to engage with the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) to address challenges facing agencies for the blind, including federal funding limitations for the Older Blind (OB) program. Seeking and spending both state and federal government money is part and parcel of this position.
The agency reports its Older Blind caseload has climbed from 661 people to 1,720 since 2022, and its prevention program from 21 to 103. This detail is precisely what voters should weigh. Darline’s track record clearly displays her governing philosophy…to enlarge state government’s footprint and seek out federal money.
Oversight on the Decline
As the agency has grown, the board that oversees it has been steadily decreasing the amount of times they meet. The Commission’s own minutes archive shows the board met twelve times in 2020, and monthly for years before that. Beginning in 2023 it cut to every other month, six meetings a year. During 2025 the Blind Commission met just 4 times, with one commissioner in March citing “the hours and resources required” for more frequent gatherings.
The Commission’s business that remains often runs behind closed doors. Last October, the board discussed what its minutes call the “Agency Head Planning Document and Property Acquisition” in executive session, then came out and approved new office furniture for the commissioner’s suite. An agency head is easiest to hold accountable when the people who set her pay and grade her performance meet often, in public, and on the record. Graham’s board has moved the other way.
Outside scrutiny has been just as scarce. The SC Legislative Audit Council (LAC) has not reviewed the Commission since 2002, and that review, under leadership long predating Graham, found significant problems. While this has no bearing on Graham, it bears pointing out that no independent auditor has analyzed the Blind Commission in 24 years, a stretch in which the agency’s budget and staff have grown substantially.
Rising Salary
The budget for the Commission for the Blind authorizes one salary for the agency head (also known as the Commissioner.) The state’s own salary database at the Department of Administration, as of this week, shows another. The pending 2026-2027 budget sets the Commissioner’s salary at $138,000. Yet sometime between Tuesday evening, the day Graham was sworn into the Senate, and Saturday morning, the Department of Administration’s public salary page bumped her total compensation up to $160,080. Make of that what you will.
Graham’s budgeted salary was $98,826 when she took over in 2019 and $138,000 by 2025-2026. In 2025-2026 her pay rose about 11 percent while the agency’s rank-and-file staff got a 2% increase that, by the board’s own minutes, expressly excluded the Commissioner. That same board voted in November to increase the Commissioner’s salary, even though the budget requests this year do not appear to reflect any of those changes.
Her agency’s expansion is driven by federal money, at the very moment Washington is cutting it back. The Commission’s minutes record that the Army issued a waiver in December stripping blind vendors of their longstanding priority under the Randolph-Sheppard Act, and that federal Rehabilitation Services Administration staff received reduction-in-force notices during the fall shutdown.
There is an irony in Trump’s endorsement. The agency Ms. Graham has been growing depends on federal dollars Washington is now cutting, and the man cutting them is the one asking her to run. Readers who cheer the cuts can decide what that says about the fit.
Candidate filing opens July 21. Just keep in mind as you sift through your options of who to vote for, “no experience” and “no record” are the wrong labels. She does have both and anyone who considers themselves to be a fiscal conservative should take a closer look at Darline’s history.
Diversity and Inclusion Darline
In the SCCB’s 2019-2020 accountability report, it mentions Darline Graham’s appointment and what she had accomplished in her first year. At the end of the paragraph, it states that the new Commissioner implemented changes in Human Resources, including “to develop a culture of diversity and inclusion” in the SCCB’s “diverse staff.”
So we have another “republican” establishment pick (or continued monarchy) that has actively worked to integrate liberal ideology into one of South Carolina’s state agencies. Are we suprised?
About That New GOP Rule…
Just three weeks ago, the South Carolina Republican Party (SCGOP) passed a rule change at the 2026 midterm convention that limits who can and can’t run for office as a republican. This rule states that in order to run on the Republican ticket, one needs to have voted in the last 2 of 3 Republican primaries. Over the weekend, FITSNews announced Ms. Graham had NOT voted in the 2024 Republican primaries, according to her voting record.
As previously reported, the SCGOP attempted to move a bill this past January that would have forced all parties to implement this 2 out of 3 primary rule. Due to the intense backlash following our exclusive coverage that warned of the dangers of the bill and who the GOP was trying to trying to keep off the republican ballot, this attempt failed. Now, the establishment will have to bend the rules it just forcibly installed so the President’s pick will be able to run on the ballot.
According to South Carolina Safe Elections, who regularly purchase voter rolls after each election, the most recent rolls show that Darline Graham did vote in the 2026 and the 2022 Republican primary. The voter roll data is unclear whether or not Darline voted in the 2024 primary election, however it does confirm that she did vote in the primary runoff on 6/25/2024.
There doesn’t seem to be much of a point in quibbling about whether or not Graham voted or not because that rule that was just passed is just that. A rule. And rules can be broken. If Graham is one of the establishment’s chosen ones, then the establishment is going to do what the establishment does, regardless of any rule is in place. If those in power want her in, the loyal foot soldiers, aka SCGOP Executive Committeemen, will vote to waive that rule. The base will be split and waste time arguing among themselves while Graham’s backers laugh all the way to the bank. Er, the polls.
What’s Ahead
Filing for the U.S. Senate republican nominee special election begins July 21 and ends July 28. Election day is scheduled for August 11th. Darline Graham announced today that she is running.
Her record at the Commission for the Blind is now part of a Senate campaign. Over seven years, the agency’s state appropriations nearly doubled, its headcount grew, and the commissioner’s salary rose. Much of the agency’s growth under Darlene’s guidance has depended on federal funding, which the current Trump administration has been reducing.
Voters weighing the “no experience” and “no record” characterization now have a documented record to consider instead.
Article posted with permission from Palmetto State Watch. Article by Janispsw
