Lindsey Graham’s Sister, an HBCU-Trained Disability Advocate, Appointed to His Senate Seat
- Javar Juarez
- 14 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Darline Graham Nordone, a longtime South Carolina disability-services administrator who has never held elected office, will become the state’s first female U.S. senator once sworn in.
By Javar Juarez | CUBNSC | July 13, 2026
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham Nordone, the younger sister of the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, to complete the final months of her brother’s term during an emotional ceremony Monday at the South Carolina Statehouse.
Nordone, 62, has led the South Carolina Commission for the Blind since 2019 and previously spent years working in vocational rehabilitation and disability employment.
She has never held elected office and maintained a limited public political profile outside her appearances in Graham’s campaigns.
Once sworn in, Nordone will become the first woman to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate. Graham’s term expires Jan. 3, 2027.
“It is such an honor,” Nordone said, surrounded by Graham’s staff members, campaign advisers and family supporters. “Lindsey has always been there for me, and now I will be there for him.”
Struggling at times to contain her emotions, Nordone promised to spend the coming months continuing her brother’s work.
“My brother was the most amazing person, outstanding leader and just a genuinely good man,” she said. “He was kind and considerate and loved by his family dearly.”
Nordone said she would work with Graham’s staff and Senate colleagues and promised to “support the president and carry forward the efforts of my brother on behalf of the citizens of South Carolina and the United States.”
Addressing her brother directly at the conclusion of her remarks, she said: “I miss you more than I can even put into words, but I’m going to do this. I got it.”
Graham died Saturday at 71 after what his office initially described as a brief and sudden illness. Preliminary findings from the District of Columbia medical examiner indicated that he suffered an aortic dissection — a tear in the body’s main artery — related to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
McMaster called her Sunday morning
McMaster said he spoke with Nordone about the appointment in “the wee hours of Sunday morning,” shortly after Graham’s death. She agreed to serve despite her grief, the governor said.
“I was humbled by your quickness to see the duty that you had to serve,” McMaster told her.
The governor said he subsequently called President Donald Trump, who considered Nordone’s appointment “a great idea.” Trump publicly recommended her for the seat Monday morning, calling her Graham’s “wonderful sister” and saying the appointment would be “a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly.”
South Carolina’s other senator, Republican Tim Scott, also endorsed Nordone, saying there was no one better positioned to understand Graham’s devotion to his family, state and country.
South Carolina law permits the governor to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy by appointment. Because Graham’s existing term was already scheduled to expire in January, Nordone will serve only until the person elected in November begins the next six-year term.
A swearing-in date had not been officially announced Monday afternoon.
A name Lindsey taught her to spell
Nordone was born June 12, 1964, according to Graham’s memoir. She grew up with her brother in Central, a small Upstate town near Clemson.
Her first name has been a source of confusion in some initial reports. Although her birth certificate reportedly spells it “Darlene,” she has used “Darline” since childhood.
Nordone explained in a 2014 interview with The Atlantic that her brother taught her to spell it “D-A-R-L-I-N-E,” and she continued using that spelling. Her state agency identifies her professionally as Darline Graham, while national political coverage typically uses her married name, Darline Graham Nordone.
She and Graham were the children of Millie Walters Graham and Florence James “F.J.” Graham, who was known as “Dude.” Their parents operated the Sanitary Cafe, a combination restaurant, bar, pool hall and liquor store on Main Street in Central.
For part of their childhood, the family lived together in a single room behind the business.
“Lindsey and I grew up in one room in the back of those buildings right there,” Nordone said when she introduced her brother at the launch of his 2015 presidential campaign. “Not one bedroom, but one room where we lived, we slept and we ate.”
The family later lived in a single-wide trailer and then in a nearby house, but the Sanitary Cafe and its customers remained at the center of their lives.
Graham was nearly nine years older than his sister. He wrote in his memoir that her arrival was one of the most important events in the family’s life and that he adored her from the time she was born. He frequently looked after her while their parents worked in the family business.
Their mother died from Hodgkin lymphoma on June 9, 1976, when Nordone was 11 — three days before her 12th birthday. Her funeral was held June 11 so it would not fall on her daughter’s birthday.
Their father died of a heart attack approximately 15 months later, when Nordone was 13 and Graham was 22.
Nordone later recalled standing frightened in the family’s living room after her father’s death. Graham wrapped his arms around her and promised he would always care for her, she said.
“He has never let me down,” she said during his presidential announcement.
Although Graham frequently was described as having raised his sister, their extended family also played an important role. Nordone lived with their maternal aunt Verna Mae Walters Hunnicutt and her husband, Hollis Hunnicutt, in the Seneca area while Graham attended law school.
Graham stayed with them on weekends and during school breaks and assumed financial and parental responsibility for his sister.
After their father died, Graham considered leaving school, seeking a hardship discharge from his Air Force commitments and running the family liquor store. Nordone objected, insisting that their parents would not have wanted him to abandon his education.
Graham became her legal guardian and later formally adopted her so she could receive military benefits if something happened to him. When the Air Force assigned him to Europe, he offered to help her attend college nearby, but she chose to remain in South Carolina.
Nordone later described Graham as “kind of like a brother, a father and a mother rolled into one.”
Graham helped pay for her education
Nordone earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the College of Charleston in December 1989. Graham helped pay for her undergraduate education.
She later earned a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from South Carolina State University in 2009.
Her graduate training aligned with a career focused on helping South Carolinians with disabilities find work and live independently.
South Carolina State, the state’s only public historically Black university, has operated a rehabilitation counseling graduate program for more than five decades.
After she takes the Senate oath, Nordone also will become the first female graduate of the College of Charleston to serve in the U.S. Senate.
A career helping people with disabilities
Before becoming commissioner, Nordone held communications and business-services positions at the South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Department.
In those roles, she worked with employers, workforce agencies and community organizations to create employment opportunities for people with physical, developmental, cognitive and other disabilities.
Nordone appeared before South Carolina’s Employment First Study Committee as the Vocational Rehabilitation Department’s communications director. She discussed the number of people seeking vocational-rehabilitation services and the state’s record of helping consumers obtain employment.
She also participated in Midlands workforce-development initiatives connecting employers with workers who had disabilities.
In September 2019, Nordone became commissioner and agency head of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind. The agency provides vocational rehabilitation, employment training, assistive technology, independent-living assistance and blindness-prevention services.
It also operates programs for children, older adults experiencing vision loss and blind entrepreneurs seeking to run vending or food-service businesses.
During Nordone’s tenure, the commission participated in a national showcase organized by the U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services Administration. The agency highlighted employment and training programs, including a pre-apprenticeship initiative that prepared blind and low-vision South Carolinians for customer-service positions.
McMaster appointed Nordone to the Governor’s State Workforce Development Board in 2022. She also has held a leadership role with the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind, where she is currently listed as president-elect and has chaired an employment committee.
Her government background distinguishes her from a conventional political caretaker. Although she has no legislative or elected experience, Nordone has spent years overseeing public programs, state employees, federal grants and workforce policies.
It was not immediately clear Monday whether she would resign from the Commission for the Blind before taking the Senate oath.
A presence in Graham’s campaigns
Nordone remained outside day-to-day electoral politics but was a consistent presence throughout her brother’s career.
She knocked on doors when Graham first ran for the South Carolina House in 1992 and later appeared in Senate campaign advertisements describing how he cared for her after their parents died.
In 2015, she introduced Graham when he launched his presidential campaign on Main Street in Central, near the building that once housed the family business. She also accompanied him when he filed for the South Carolina presidential primary and attended a ceremonial Senate swearing-in that year.
Because Graham never married and had no children, he frequently described his sister as the center of his family and closest support network.
During his presidential campaign, Graham suggested Nordone could perform some of the ceremonial responsibilities traditionally assigned to a first lady. He joked that his administration might have a “rotating first lady” because his sister had a family and obligations of her own.
“Whatever I ask her to do, she would do, and if she took a role on, she’d be a great representative of the country,” Graham said in 2015. “I can’t think of a better person to represent our country at an event than my sister.”
Nordone is married to Larry Nordone and has two daughters. She also has grandchildren, who accompanied Graham when he filed his 2026 reelection paperwork earlier this year.
Few stated positions on national issues
Despite her years in state government and Graham’s campaigns, Nordone has left little public record of her views on national policy.
She has not publicly detailed her positions on abortion, immigration, taxes, health care, foreign policy or the use of military force — issues that defined much of her brother’s Senate career. Nor has she said whether she agrees with every position Graham held.
Her clearest political commitment came during Monday’s ceremony, when she promised to support Trump and continue her brother’s efforts.
It remains unclear which Senate committees she will serve on, whether she will retain Graham’s full staff or whether she intends to participate in the special Republican primary for the next term.
Her statement that she would serve over “the next several months” suggested a temporary caretaker role, but neither Nordone nor McMaster explicitly said she would stay out of the race.
Two separate succession processes
Nordone’s appointment applies only to the remainder of Graham’s current term. A separate process will determine who appears on the November ballot for the six-year term beginning in January.
Graham had won the Republican primary in June and was preparing to face Democratic nominee Annie Andrews in November. His death created a vacancy in the Republican nomination.
Under the anticipated state election schedule, candidates seeking the Republican nomination may begin filing July 21. A special primary is expected Aug. 11, followed by an Aug. 25 runoff if no candidate receives a majority. The eventual nominee would face Andrews in the Nov. 3 general election.
The accelerated schedule has raised questions about compliance with the federal law requiring military and overseas ballots to be transmitted 45 days before a federal election.
For now, Nordone will enter a Senate still grieving one of its most recognizable members, carrying the name of the brother who became her guardian nearly half a century ago.
“I think this is what Lindsey would have wanted,” she said Monday. “And I plan to honor him in this way.”
Javar Juarez is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Urban Broadcast Network (CUBN), an independent investigative news outlet based in Columbia, South Carolina, and a member of the South Carolina Press Association. He is also President of the Capital City Chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.