Darline Graham Nordone: What to know about the sister of late Sen. Lindsey Graham

Darline Graham Nordone has never held public office, but the bond with her late brother -- Sen. Lindsey Graham -- was strong enough that Gov. Henry McMaster named her to temporarily fill the seat left vacant when the senior U.S. senator from South Carolina died suddenly on Saturday.

Nordone, 62, however, is no stranger to politics, supporting her older brother and joining him at speeches and rallies, according to The Associated Press. She is nine years younger than her brother and a mother of two, The Washington Post reported.

Graham, 71, died from an aortic dissection, according to a preliminary cause of death released by a medical examiner. He had represented South Carolina since 2003 and was running for a fifth term in the Senate.

Nordone will serve through the remainder of her brother’s term, which ends in January. Because Graham was running for reelection this year, his death means there will be a primary on Aug. 11 to replace him on the November ballot, CNN reported, citing a news release from McMaster’s office.

Whoever wins that primary will face Democrat Annie Andrews in the Nov. 3 general election.

It was unclear whether Nordone would enter that primary. The one-week filing period opens July 21.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told CNN that he had spoken with Nordone and McMaster on Sunday, and that the choice of Graham’s sister “certainly, in my view, makes a lot of sense.”

Nordone has always been a presence during Graham’s campaigns for public office.

When Graham first ran for the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1992, Nordone knocked on doors with him, the Post reported.

In a political ad for Graham’s reelection campaign for the Senate in 2014, Nordone said that her brother has “always been there for me as long as I can remember.”

“My parents, since they had to work a lot, Lindsey was kind of the one there that took care of me,” she said, according to The State. “If I fell down and scraped my knee, Lindsey was the one I ran to.”

The siblings’ parents, who owned a pool hall and restaurant in Central, South Carolina, called the Sanitary Cafe, died within 15 months of each other.

Their mother died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1976, when Nordone was 11, and their father died of a heart attack when she was 13 and Graham was 22, The New York Times reported.

She recalled Graham running to grab and hug her when they learned the news about their father.

“He was like, ‘I am so sorry, but it’s going to be OK. I’m going to take care of you,’” Nordone said in a recent video. “And he did. He’s always been there for me.”

Nordone was taken in by her aunt and uncle while Graham was in college and later in the service, and the future senator later formally adopted her after becoming a military lawyer in the Air Force so she would have access to his military benefits, the Post reported.

She called her brother “a father figure,” according to the newspaper.

“He’s kind of like a brother, a father and a mother rolled into one,” she said in a 2015 interview with the Times. Nordone declined an interview Sunday, telling the newspaper that the loss of her brother was still too raw.

She has worked to help people with disabilities find jobs, according to the Post. She currently serves as a commissioner for the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, CNN reported.

Her successes were a source of pride for Graham.

“Of all the things that have happened in my life, her turning out so well is the highlight of it by far,” he told C-SPAN in 2015.

Nordone graduated from the College of Charleston in 1989 with a degree in sociology, the newspaper reported. She later attended the University of South Carolina as a graduate student for two semesters in 2007 and 2008, but did not receive a degree, according to school officials.

When Graham filed his paperwork in March for this year’s election, Nordone was by his side, along with her children and grandchildren, the AP reported.

Bob McAlister, a former adviser to Graham, described the bond the senator had with his sister as extraordinary, the Times reported.

“I can’t stress his loyalty to his sister and his family, and that’s something that most people don’t understand,” McAlister told the newspaper.

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