CNN first broke the news this morning about the South Carolina senator. It was only a matter of time, of course: Graham was pulling an average 0.5 percent in the polls, only a smidgen ahead of George Pataki.
He seemed to be having a great time on the trail, boozing with reporters and cheerfully stumping for support while calling for a land war. But his call for actual American ground troops in Syria, alongside his reputation as a Democrat-friendly dealmaker, doomed his campaign from the start. Obama summed up his problem perfectly in his new NPR interview, simultaneously bear-hugging Graham while calling out his hawkishness: “What’s interesting is that most of the critics have not called for ground forces,” Obama said. “To his credit, I think Lindsey Graham is one of the few who has been at least honest about suggesting ‘here is something I would do that the president is not doing.’”
Graham never qualified for the main debate stage, and he fell woefully short even in his home state: In one September poll, 78 percent of South Carolina GOP primary voters thought he should drop out of the race. Farewell, Lindsey Graham, the 2016 race barely knew ye.