This has got to be the most ill-timed endorsement I’ve ever seen Trump make of a candidate:
Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina. I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2018
It’s ill-timed because there less than three hours of voting left in today’s primary:
Trump takes rare step of endorsing a candidate who's primary an incumbent. But he does so just 2 hours and 48 minutes before polls close in South Carolina. https://t.co/iykSRFrZZq
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) June 12, 2018
Just after Trump tweeted, Lindsey Graham tweeted this:
Just had a great discussion with President @realDonaldTrump calling from Air Force One.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 12, 2018
Well that probably explains it right there. Lindsey told him to try and push Arrington over the finish line and he did it on the spot. LOL.
A poll from last week showed that the race is very tight, with Sanford up by 1% over Arrington.
If you want to know why Trump doesn’t like Sanford, aside from Graham’s advice, here’s why:
Trump threatened to primary Sanford if he didn’t vote for Trumpcare in April of 2017. Sandford is a member of the Freedom Caucus, which has been a thorn in Trump’s side. Sandford refused to vote for Trumpcare.
Sanford also voted against the trillion dollar spending bill that passed earlier this year. And he voted against the one last year that never made it to Trump.
So what Trump wants isn’t a principled, fiscal conservative, but rather someone who will ride the Trump train.
Now I don’t know much about Katie Arrington, but my guess based on all of this is that I’d be voting for Mark Sanford in this race.
We’ll let you know how it turns out later tonight.