United States Senate election in South Carolina, 2002
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The 2002 United States Senate election in South Carolina was held on November 5, 2002. Long-time Incumbent Strom Thurmond decided to retire at the age of 100, becoming the first Centenarian to ever serve in Congress, and at that time was the longest serving Senator in U.S. history (a record later surpassed by West Virginia's Robert Byrd). Republican Lindsey Graham won the open seat and has been in office since then.
Alex Sanders, the former president of the College of Charleston, entered the race and faced no opposition from South Carolina Democrats, thereby avoiding a primary election.
Representative Lindsey Graham had no challenge for the Republican nomination and thus avoided a primary election. This was due in large part because the South Carolina Republicans were preoccupied with the gubernatorial race and also because potential rivals were deterred by the huge financial war chest Graham had amassed early in the campaign.
The election campaign between Graham and Sanders pitted ideology against personality. Graham spread his message to the voters that he had a consistent conservative voting record and that his votes in Congress closely matched that of outgoing Senator Strom Thurmond. Sanders claimed that he was best to represent South Carolina in the Senate because he held membership in both the NAACP, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the NRA, and because he said that his positions more closely matched the citizens of the state. He said that he was against the death penalty for religious reasons, supported abortion rights, and was for greater government involvement in education. Graham attacked Sanders for these positions consistently throughout the campaign, but Sanders hit back at Graham for wanting to privatize social security.
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