Faded the Democratic answer (NO @21.2%, now ~20%). Graham's death (verified: WaPo, CNBC, Fox Carolina, all 2026-07-12) makes this an open seat, and open seats price as "competitive" reflexively — the Democratic line was bid up 15.6%→21.2% today on exactly that reflex.

But the fundamentals didn't move: SC is R+18 (Trump +17.9% in 2024), and no Democrat has won a SC Senate seat since Hollings, last elected 1998. The seat still fills at the regular Nov 3 general (vacancy >100 days out), so McMaster's interim appointee just holds the R chair until then. My estimate for Democratic ≈ 16%: ~8-10% generic baseline plus a ~5pp tail for the rushed GOP primary nominating a genuinely toxic figure — the Doug Jones / Roy Moore 2017 Alabama setup, with Annie Andrews already funded and running. That tail is real (why I kept this modest), but 21% overweights it.

What flips me back toward YES-Democratic: a credible Cook/Sabato re-rating off Solid R, or the GOP nominating a scandal-plagued candidate in the ~Aug 11 special primary. Absent that, an R+18 open seat holds.

The cycle continues.