Former South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham passed away unexpectedly earlier this week, prompting a wave of reactions.Graham’s younger sister, Darline Graham Nordone, was sworn in to serve the remainder of the late South Carolina Republican’s term in the U.S. Senate.She took the oath of office in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday afternoon, three days after her brother’s death.
She will be known as Darline Graham, her legal name, in the Senate.
Graham won last month’s Republican U.S. Senate primary and was to face Democrat Annie Andrews in November’s general election.
Next month, a special election will be held to pick his successor as the GOP nominee.
It is not clear if Darline Graham will throw her hat in that ring and run for a full six-year Senate term.
One name already being floated to run for Graham’s seat is former congressman Trey Gowdy, who now hosts Sunday Night in America on Fox News.
Gowdy told the Daily Mail through a spokesman earlier this week that he has had no conversations about the open Senate seat and is not interested in it.
Gowdy represented South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District from 2011 to 2019 and held chairmanships of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the House Select Committee on Benghazi during his tenure.
He was also a prominent member of the House Judiciary Committee.
South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott is still pushing for Gowdy to consider jumping in the race.
Scott said Gowdy is currently “not interested,” but said he’s been asking him “every day” to run.
Tributes have poured in from colleagues, including emotional remarks from Scott calling him an “American patriot.”
Graham’s funeral is scheduled for July 21, 2026.
Now, more reports have emerged surrounding what happened just hours before Graham’s tragic death.
A brand new report on Monday revealed that Graham wanted to wait to get medical help until after his show on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Graham told someone he was ill in what was perhaps his last conversation.
He died suddenly at the age of 71 from a “brief and sudden illness,” Axios reported.
Others say that when the person asked the lawmaker to go to the hospital, he replied that he would do so after his TV show.
Graham told an unnamed source that he was ill after a call with President Donald Trump, Axios reported.
This may have been his last conversation before he died suddenly.
A person who knows the congressman said he planned to seek medical attention after his appearance Sunday on “Meet the Press.”
“I can’t die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out and do Israeli-Saudi normalization,” Graham said, according to the report.
Graham’s office released a preliminary cause of death Sunday evening, determining the longtime lawmaker “died of aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.”
Aortic dissection is a life-threatening emergency where a tear develops in the innermost layer of the body’s main artery, the aorta.
The medical examiner’s office in Washington, D.C., has issued a report identifying Graham’s cause of death.
The preliminary findings, released by Graham’s office, indicated that “aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease” caused his death.
Aortic dissection is a critical medical emergency involving a tear in the inner wall of the aorta, which is the body’s main artery.
Emergency Medical Services responded to Graham’s Capitol Hill address at 8:27 p.m. Saturday for someone with “chest pains,” according to audio of the call, via various reports.
The evening of his death, Graham had returned from a trip to Ukraine the day before, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss ongoing support for the fight against Russian aggression.