Is Lindsey Graham going to get primaried?

The South Carolina Republican is up for re-election next year, and his positions on taxes and immigration might make him the Tea Party's next target

Some conservatives are calling for Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-S.C.) head.
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

In 2010, veteran Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) predicted the then-booming Tea Party movement would "die out." He has been at odds with the small-government activists ever since. Graham has clashed with Tea Party favorites in the Senate, including Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, over everything from his more interventionist foreign policy to his hinting that taxes might be raised as part of a grand bargain on the budget.

Lately, Graham's advocacy of a new immigration reform effort — which includes a path to legal status for some people who came to the U.S. illegally — has drawn particular ire from Graham's enemies. National Tea Party leaders say they've had enough, and they're vowing to push Graham aside when he runs for re-election next year. "He's begging for a primary," Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, told ABC News this week.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.