WashingtonPaul Dans, the leader of the MAGA movement, is entering a crowded field in South Carolina to run in the Republican primary, putting his allegiances to the test in the midterm election next year.
Dans expressed his hopes for the Trump administration to The Associated Press. However, he stated that more work needs to be done.
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In an AP interview, Dans stated, “What we’ve done with Project 2025 is really change the game in terms of closing the door on the progressive era.” The United States Senate is the chokepoint, if you look for it. That is where the swamp’s headwaters are.
Graham has spent the majority of his career in Washington, therefore it’s time to let him go, according to Dans, who will formally declare his campaign at an event in Charleston on Wednesday.
In what is quickly becoming a crowded field ahead of the November 2026 midterm election that will decide the outcome, challenging the long-serving Graham, who has consistently beaten back candidates over the years, is somewhat of a political long shot.
Although their relationship has been erratic, Trump initially endorsed Graham as president. Graham gained the support of the state’s top Republicans, the governor and senator, when he declared his intention to run for a fifth term in the Senate. Millions of dollars have been accumulated in his campaign fund.
In an early start to the election season, more than a year before the election, several candidates, including a Republican and a wealthy developer, have declared their intention to run for the Senate seat.
Graham did not address his reelection campaign during his Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, but he did answer questions about his efforts to make as much of the case files available as possible—something that many of Trump’s fans have called for.
Dans, a lawyer who served as the White House liaison to the office of personnel management during the first Trump administration, stated that he anticipates having the backing of Project 2025 backers in addition to the ranks of Trump fans in the state who have openly grown weary of Graham.
Dans, who is now a father of four, started working at the Heritage Foundation after Trump departed the White House. He frequently traveled to Washington during the week to work there. The roughly 1,000-page policy plan, which includes chapters authored by prominent conservative intellectuals, includes several right-wing recommendations for the incoming White House.
“I think there is a deep state out there, and I’m the only one who stepped forward at the end of Trump’s first term and really started to drain the swamp,” Dans stated, adding that he put together a large portion of the book from his Charleston kitchen table.
He claimed that one of the objectives was to dismantle the administrative state, which is exactly what the Trump administration has been doing. He specifically cited the closing of government offices by a former Trump aide.
Dans and Heritage in July 2024 amid criticism of Project 2025. During the presidential campaign season that summer, Dans and Heritage presented the hard-right policy proposals—which included budget cuts and mass firings—as a warning of what would occur in a second Trump term.
Trump and his team maintained that it was unrelated to his “Agenda 47.”
Dans is starting his campaign at a historic Charleston location with a prayer breakfast and kick-off ceremony.
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Kinnard may be contacted at and reported from Chapin, South Carolina.
