Lindsey Graham: Long shot, wild card or favorite son in 2016?

Whether he is on a quest for a louder microphone or wants to “change the country,” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina says he seriously is weighing a run for the White House in 2016.

The Seneca Republican raised the possibility of running for president last fall, before he easily won a third U.S. Senate term. This month, he has further fueled national media buzz about a possible campaign for president.

But could Graham win the GOP presidential nomination?

Not likely, say political experts, given the tastes of GOP primary voters and the huge challenge of raising enough money in a jam-packed field of candidates that includes heavyweight alternatives – as Graham’s S.C. races have not. The field may include Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

Graham has been trying to make the case that he has the policy resume to be a serious candidate.

Last Sunday, Graham told “Meet the Press” that he has been “more right than wrong” when it comes to identifying the threats abroad to the nation and could lead on foreign policy in a “world (that) is falling apart.”

Graham told the NBC talk show that he has a committee “testing the waters.” He added on “Fox and Friends’ Friday that he hopes to know by May whether he will jump into the race.

Experts say Graham – whose interest in running is so new that his name has not been included in any 2016 GOP polls – has some advantages.

By frequently appearing on the Sunday talk shows, he already has garnered significant national exposure, establishing a reputation as a Republican foreign policy wonk.

And voters nationally do not know Graham’s personal story – how both his parents died when he was in college and he helped raise his younger sister. That narrative could be “compelling,” said Chip Felkel, a Greenville GOP consultant.

Graham also has proven adept at winning political races. He never has lost a contest, from a term in the S.C. House to four terms in the U.S. House to three terms in the U.S. Senate. He easily beat back six tea party foes in last June’s GOP primary.

But opposition from some S.C. GOP activists, who have led county parties around the state to censure Graham, also would work against him on a national level, political experts say.

Liberals liberals see Graham as right wing. But the GOP’s tea partiers bristle at the pro-life, pro-gun senator’s support for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, along with his occasional willingness to work with President Obama and congressional Democrats.

Those conservatives are the voters who matter in a GOP primary, said Winthrop University political scientist Scott Huffmon. He noted a key difference between Graham’s Senate races and a possible run for the White House: “(GOP voters) will have much more nationally qualified candidates to choose from in a presidential primary.”

If not now, when?

After winning his third Senate term in November, a victory-buzzed Graham climbed on the stage at his victory party and said he was happy to win, thanking his opponents for running – “all 20 of them,” he joked.

“It means that reaching across the aisle and trying to solve problems is not mutually exclusive with being conservative,” Graham said in assessing his victory.

After winning his June GOP primary challenge, Graham said that victory meant Republican voters saw his critics as “off base” and sided with him, not against him.

Graham, 59, was unavailable last week to discuss his logic and plans in exploring a possible White House run.

Speculating about his thinking, University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato suggested that Graham may figure, “If he’s ever gonna run, now’s the time to do it.”

In Sabato’s estimation, Graham’s frequent criticism of Democrat Obama — on Benghazi, Syria, ISIS and a host of other subjects — could help him with GOP voters. But Graham’s support for immigration reform could hurt him with the GOP base.

Graham likely would be “crowded out” by other “establishment candidates,” Sabato said.

If Graham runs, Sabato sees him as a sixth-tier, “wild-card” candidate. That puts him near the bottom of a list of about 20 potential Republican candidates, ranking only above those likely motivated by a desire to sell books.

“I'm not saying he's a minor figure,” Sabato said Friday. “People run for president for different reasons. Some run simply to win. Others run to promote views on particular issues that matter to them.”

While Graham could win the S.C. primary, he would struggle to win the GOP nomination, Sabato and other experts agree.

“Maybe (U.S. Sen. John) McCain has convinced him that he has a shot,” Sabato said. He added that GOP voters would not renominate the too-moderate McCain and likely would pass on Graham, a McCain ally, who would have to “do a lot of explaining.”

Clemson University political scientist Dave Woodard is not sure Graham would even win the S.C. primary.

Woodard said S.C. Republican primary voters likely still have a “distaste for Lindsey Graham,” who has pushed for immigration reform and sometimes criticizes members of his own party publicly.

“(GOP voters) overcame that in order to vote for him” in the June Republican primary, said Woodard, adding, “that doesn’t mean they want him to be president.”

Woodard offered another possible reason for Graham’s interest in the race – one other political scientists said was unlikely: “He may be running for the vice presidency.”

Debating foreign policy

In recent interviews, Graham said he seriously is weighing running, and if he finds a competitive path forward, he will take it.

Graham planted the seed for his possible White House ambitions before his November re-election, telling one media outlet that he was thinking about running for president “to get to make these arguments.”

This month, McCain, Graham’s close friend and fellow U.S. senator who lost to then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008, said he is pushing Graham – whom he jokingly has called his “illegitimate son” – to run.

Reacting to McCain’s comment, Graham told conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he was not trying to make a statement. “I’m doing it to change the country, and offer what I have to offer to the American people and to my party.”

Graham also critiqued 2012 GOP nominee Romney, who reportedly is considering his third bid for the White House, as a “fine candidate.”

But, Graham added. “If he runs for president again, and he embraces self-deportation as a way of solving the immigration problem, we’re going to have a problem as Republicans in general.”

On “Fox and Friends” Friday, Graham pushed his top agenda item.

He said he is qualified to be the GOP’s nominee because he is an alternative to President Obama’s foreign policy. Graham said he is “the person who can articulate, ‘Here are the threats, here are our enemies and here are our friends.’ ”

Graham said he could explain “how you actually degrade and destroy (the Islamic State terrorist organization). Here's how you reset the situation in the Mideast. Here's how you negotiate with Iran, who's been trying to cheat for the last 20 years.’ I think I'm well qualified for that task and others.”

Native-son advantage?

Opinion splits on whether Graham could win South Carolina’s first-in-the-South primary.

Historically, that primary has predicted the eventual GOP presidential nominee – with the exception of 2012, when S.C. voters picked Newt Gingrich over Romney.

Felkel said that if Graham runs, he will be seen as a “favorite-son candidate” of S.C. voters.

That could change the primary’s dynamics, causing other GOP candidates with fewer campaign dollars to focus less on the Palmetto State, giving Graham an advantage. If Graham could lock down South Carolina and perform well in Iowa, where Graham has a new friend in Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, and New Hampshire, he might have a chance, some experts said.

Graham would take an early lead in S.C. polls as the “son of South Carolina,” said Huffmon, who runs the Winthrop Poll.

“But when the race heats up, it will get vicious” in the same way the 2000 GOP presidential primary did, Huffmon predicted, referring to whisper campaigns against McCain and attempts to paint the former prisoner of war as the “Manchurian candidate.”

“It was brutal,” Huffmon said.

Most experts said Graham likely could lose his home state once S.C. GOP voters focused on the wide range of other options.

Not all S.C. GOP movers and shakers will be on board with a Graham presidential run, as evidenced by Walter Whetsell, a Lexington-based GOP consultant.

Last year, Whetsell ran the West Main Street Values PAC that worked to re-elect Graham to the Senate. The PAC raised about $2 million.

But Whetsell said he will help former Texas Gov. Rick Perry if he runs in 2016, just as he did in 2012.

The experts also disagree on whether Graham’s fundraising prowess, demonstrated by raising about $14 million to win re-election statewide, would translate into the ability to raise enough money nationally.

Winthrop’s Huffmon said it might – Graham has made a lot of connections in his years as a senator and has shown he can raise money in other states.

But Graham would need to raise much more than $14 million to compete for the White House. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, raised $447 million in his failed 2012 bid to unseat Obama.

A compelling story

Graham’s national profile, combined with his tendency to say unpredictable things, could help him rise above the din of same-sounding contenders, said Furman University political scientist Danielle Vinson.

Graham has something other candidates do not, she said. “The media cannot ignore (Graham). ... He’s a walking sound bite.”

But some factors would weigh against Graham in a presidential race.

For example, a Graham White House win would be unusual since he is a bachelor.

For Graham, being unmarried could be a setback, said Woodard of Clemson. “People want to have a first family. That is kind of critical.”

In its almost 250-year history, the United States has had only one lifelong bachelor president — James Buchanan, who served from 1857 to 1861.

But Furman’s Vinson said she is not sure how much Graham’s marital status would matter to voters today.

Vinson also said Graham has a “compelling personal story” to tell GOP voters about the death of his parents.

Graham’s parents owned a pool hall and restaurant in Central. His father and motherdied within 15 months of each other, when Graham was attending the University of South Carolina and his sister was 13 years old.

Graham’s sister moved in with an aunt and uncle in Seneca while Graham finished school; he came home on the weekends to be with her. Graham became his sister’s legal guardian before he joined the U.S. Air Force.

How the younger Grahams struggled to find their footing is a story line that the senator highlights on the campaign trail, most recently in a television ad featuring his sister, Darline.

Graham’s “meager” financial beginnings set him apart from other candidates, said Felkel of Greenville.

“We’re not talking about a guy who fell into a Senate seat here. ... A lot of the people that dislike Lindsey Graham on stories nationally don’t know the whole Lindsey Graham story,” he added.

“Whether that can be translated into a successful candidacy, the jury’s out on that.”

This story was originally published January 24, 2015 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Lindsey Graham: Long shot, wild card or favorite son in 2016?."