President Trump is wheels up for the Palmetto State. The President boarded Air Force One on Wednesday afternoon for a rally tonight at Clemson University’s T. Ed Garrison Arena, set for 7 p.m. Eastern (6 p.m. Central), one day after packing the house in Greenville, North Carolina. “I’m going to South Carolina,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn. “We have a tremendous crowd. And I think it will be an amazing day.”
The President is there to help keep the seat of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham in Republican hands. Sen. Darline Graham, Lindsey’s sister, took over the remainder of her brother’s term and is running for a full term with the President’s endorsement against Democrat Annie Andrews. “She’s fantastic,” Trump said.
The White House marked the trip with a long list of results for South Carolina. About 1 million South Carolina seniors benefit from the new senior deduction in the Working Families Tax Cuts, with the average senior expected to pay zero federal tax on Social Security. South Carolina taxpayers saw average refunds of $3,476 this year, and the tax cuts protected an estimated 86,000 jobs and $8 billion in wages. The state also landed $200 million in first-year Rural Health Transformation funding.
The money is pouring in. NorthMark Strategies is building a $2.8 billion high-performance computing center in Spartanburg, Octapharma is putting $1.5 billion into a critical care plant in Rock Hill, Ferrara Candy is investing $675 million in Orangeburg County, and Okonite is building a $400 million high-voltage cable plant in Orangeburg with 105 jobs. Eaton, Scout Motors, Rolls-Royce and Century Aluminum are expanding too, with Century restoring its Berkeley County plant to full capacity for the first time in a decade.
South Carolina is safer, too. Violent crime fell 11 percent and property crime fell 14 percent last year, and overall crime in Charleston plunged 36 percent in 2025. At least 72 law enforcement agencies in the state, including SLED and the Department of Public Safety, now have 287(g) agreements with ICE to remove violent illegal alien criminals. Early voting in South Carolina began Monday, and Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
