Five Republican candidates will take the stage Monday night for a live, one-hour debate at the WIS studios in downtown Columbia, setting up one of the last big chances for voters to size up the field before early voting opens. The South Carolina Republican Party picked Ralph Norman, Darline Graham, Russell Fry, Mark Lynch and Mark Sanford for the debate in the special Republican U.S. Senate primary race.
The timing is what gives the event its weight. Drew McKissick said the debate will come one week before the primary, with early voting starting two days later, which means the candidates have only a narrow window to make an impression before ballots begin moving. The debate will air from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday on Gray Media stations across the Carolinas and on station websites and digital platforms.
To qualify, candidates had to file with the South Carolina State Election Commission, be certified for the ballot by the SCGOP, rank among the top five in polling averages and sign debate guidelines on deadline. The party said those averages came from surveys that were not paid for by campaigns or affiliated political action committees, a standard that narrowed the stage to five after nine Republicans were in the race. For viewers, that means the debate is built around the candidates polling closest to the top, not the full field.
The five who did not make it were Duke Buckner, Danny Ford II, Mark McBride, Glenda Gail Parker and Samuel Shepherd. McKissick said the limit was necessary because one hour would not give fair time to nine candidates, and he said voters at home would not get much useful information from a larger group squeezed into the same format. Three moderators — Joey Hudson of WORD Radio, Kelly Nash of iHeartRadio and Wendy Damron of the Palmetto Promise Institute — will handle the questions.
McKissick also said the race is so crowded that a runoff looks all but certain, which gives Monday’s debate added urgency even if it cannot settle the contest on its own. The party has tried to use the debate, and the events around it, to give voters something more substantial than short television spots in a compressed campaign. By the time early voting starts two days later, the leading candidates will have had their one-hour turn; what remains is whether anyone beyond the top five can still change the shape of the race before Aug. 11.
