Latest news with #PaulDans
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Project 2025 architect Paul Dans to challenge Lindsey Graham for Senate in South Carolina
Paul Dans, the main force behind the polarizing conservative blueprint Project 2025, is planning to challenge South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham in next year's Republican primary. Dans told CNN he will formally launch his campaign with a prayer breakfast Wednesday in Charleston. Graham, a close friend of President Donald Trump's, is seeking a fifth term and already has the president's backing. Dans, though, said there is room for a Republican candidate to prove they are more loyal to and aligned with Trump than Graham. 'He's a 70-year-old childless warmonger and he has no stake in the future of this country,' Dans said. 'He is the very reason that MAGA started in the first place, and we only have to look at 2016 when he was a vehement Trump hater. A leopard doesn't change its spots.' Dans went on to rebuke Graham for voting to confirm judicial nominees put forth by Barack Obama and Joe Biden during their presidencies and for his past remarks affirming Russia's attempts to interfere in the 2016 election, signaling some potential future attacks during the primary campaign. Former South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is also running in the GOP primary against Graham. A veteran of the first Trump administration, Dans spent the next few years at the Heritage Foundation. There, he spearheaded Project 2025, a right-wing roadmap for the next Republican president put together by more than 100 conservative organizations in the lead up to the 2024 election. It included a 900-page manifesto full of policy prescriptions that provided Democrats with ample fodder to attack Trump during the presidential campaign. As criticism intensified, Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 and Dans was pushed out of Heritage. However, a CNN review found many of Trump's early actions as president aligned with Project 2025's proposals. Dans suggested the blueprint – once seen as a liability for Trump – could demonstrate his MAGA credentials to South Carolina Republican voters. 'I was able to work with thousands of patriots who came together and put in that labor to make the next conservative president hit the ground day one. And that's what President Trump and his team did,' Dans said. 'It's gratifying to see these ideas preserved and put into action. But to be clear, the battle goes on.'
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
Project 2025 architect Paul Dans to challenge Lindsey Graham for Senate
Paul Dans, a key architect of the Project 2025 right-wing policy operation, plans to launch a campaign to challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) in the Republican primary, joining a large field of candidates hoping to oust the longtime senator. Dans, who has never run for public office, said he felt he had 'no choice' but to run against Graham, whom he described in an interview Monday as 'utterly disconnected' from the people of South Carolina.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nikki Haley endorses Ralph Norman, Project 2025 architect launches Senate campaign
A high-profile conservative says he is running to unseat long-time Sen. Lindsey Graham in next year's Republican primary. Paul Dans, the former director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project known as Project 2025, announced his plans to run against Graham — launching a campaign page and changing his social media bio to say, "Candidate for U.S. Senate to Retire Lindsey Graham once and for all." Dans, a former member of the Trump administration and lawyer, boasts conservative policy points like cutting government spending, bringing down the federal debt and fighting federal bureaucracy on his campaign website. He aligns himself with Trump's ideologies and authored Project 2025, a conservative policy plan laying out a course of action for a Republican presidency. "For conservatives to have a fighting chance to take on the Administrative State and reform our federal government, the work must start now," Dans wrote in the Project 2025 forward. "The entirety of this effort is to support the next conservative President, whoever he or she may be." He is planning to make a "special announcement" on July 30, at the Old Provost Exchange Dungeon in Charleston. "As a proven conservative who led Project 2025's blueprint for reform and served in Trump's administration, Paul offers a bold, America First vision," Dans campaign website states. The race for Graham's Senate seat is getting crowded with three other candidates declared. Dans' Republican competitors, so far, are incumbent Graham, former South Carolina Lt. Gov. André Bauer, and businessman Mark Lynch. An official primary date and filing deadline have not been set. Ralph Norman racks up Republican party endorsements Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is putting her support behind U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman's campaign for governor. More: Congressman Ralph Norman officially joins the 2026 race for South Carolina governor Norman (SC-5th District) formally announced his campaign on July 25 before a kickoff event on July 27. He also earned the endorsements of Jim DeMint, a former U.S. Senator from South Carolina, and Mark Meadows, President Donald Trump's former White House chief of staff. The congressman notably endorsed Haley for president over Trump and joined her on the campaign trail before she dropped out of the primary race in 2024. He will compete against Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, State Sen. Josh Kimbrell and Attorney General Alan Wilson in the Republican primary contest next year. Bella Carpentier covers the South Carolina legislature, state, and Greenville County politics. Contact her at bcarpentier@ This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Project 2025 writer joins South Carolina Senate race to unseat Graham
The Independent
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Project 2025 architect is taking on Trump stalwart Lindsey Graham, 70, for Senate seat
Paul Dans, one of the top architects behind Project 2025, is joining the Republican primary to oust South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham — who has held the seat for 22 years. Joining a crowded primary field, Dans said the Trump administration's cuts to the federal workforce and federal programs are what he had aimed for when putting together Project 2025. But he noted that there's 'more work to do.' 'What we've done with Project 2025 is really change the game in terms of closing the door on the progressive era,' said Dans. 'If you look at where the chokepoint is, it's the United States Senate. That's the headwaters of the swamp.' Dans will formally announce his bid at a campaign event in Charleston on Wednesday. His campaign will launch with a prayer breakfast followed by an event at a historic venue. About Graham, he said, 'It's time to show him the door.' Trump 2024 co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser on the Graham campaign, said in a statement that, 'After being unceremoniously dumped in 2024 while trying to torpedo Donald Trump's historic campaign, Paul Dans has parachuted himself into the state of South Carolina in direct opposition to President Trump's longtime friend and ally in the Senate, Lindsey Graham.' Graham, who has been in the Senate since 2003, has previously beaten challengers who have taken him on. President Donald Trump has already endorsed Graham, and Sen. Tim Scott and the state's governor, Henry McMaster, are chairing his bid for a fifth term. Graham, 70, also has millions in his campaign account. With more than a year left until the 2026 midterm elections, former South Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer and Democrat Dr. Annie Andrews have also announced that they will run for the seat. During Trump's first term, Dans worked in the White House as the liaison to the Office of Personnel Management. He said he expects to garner the support of Project 2025 allies and Trump supporters who have grown tired of Graham. Following Trump's departure from the White House, Dans joined the Heritage Foundation, where he organized Project 2025. The nearly 1,000-page plan for a new Republican administration includes chapters authored by several conservatives and argues for dismantling the federal government and reducing its workforce. 'To be clear, I believe that there is a 'deep state' out there, and I'm the single one who stepped forward at the end of the first term of Trump and really started to drain the swamp,' said Dans, adding that he put together large parts of the tome at his Charleston kitchen table. Dans said one of the goals was to 'deconstruct the administrative state,' which he argued the Trump administration has been doing, noting former Trump adviser Elon Musk 's leadership at the Department of Government Efficiency, which took the lead in shutting down the United States Agency for International Development. As Project 2025 came under scrutiny in July last year, Dans departed from the Heritage Foundation. The plan gained notoriety last summer as Democrats highlighted the proposals as a warning of what would be forthcoming if Trump were allowed to return to the White House. Trump, then a presidential candidate and former president, put some distance between himself and Project 2025, claiming that it wasn't connected to his 'Agenda 47.'
New York Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Project 2025 Architect Is Challenging Lindsey Graham for Senate
The Republican architect of Project 2025 — the right-wing blueprint that Democrats made a rallying cry in the presidential election last year — is mounting a primary challenge to Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, saying he isn't sufficiently devoted to President Trump's political movement. As he begins his challenge, Paul Dans, who is not originally from South Carolina, starts out as a distinct underdog. Mr. Graham, who has the support of Mr. Trump, has won past primaries handily despite appearing vulnerable, and he is likely to have a significant financial edge. But Mr. Dans plans to run highlighting the work of Project 2025, from which Mr. Trump distanced himself during his campaign before enacting significant portions of it into his government. And while Mr. Dans had nothing but praise for Mr. Trump, his candidacy comes at a moment when some of Mr. Trump's hard-line allies have been critical of some decisions, including his authorization of military strikes in Iran and his handling of files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. He intends to cast Mr. Graham as an old-guard Republican who is not aligned with Mr. Trump's movement. 'He's the very reason MAGA came into being,' Mr. Dans said of the president's political movement. 'He's essentially anti-MAGA.' In an interview, he characterized Mr. Graham's Senate record as producing 'three endless wars and over $30 trillion in debt.' He added: 'He has done so much damage to the movement.' Mr. Trump in March announced his backing of Mr. Graham, with whom he has worked closely since his first term, declaring that he would not 'let you down.' Chris LaCivita, who helped run Mr. Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, is advising Mr. Graham's campaign. In a statement, Mr. LaCivita slammed Mr. Dans as having 'parachuted himself into the state of South Carolina in direct opposition to President Trump's longtime friend and ally in the Senate, Lindsey Graham. Like everything Paul Dans starts, this too will end prematurely.' Mr. Dans is not the only Republican challenging Mr. Graham. The state's lieutenant governor, André Bauer, announced his candidacy this month. Mr. Dans would not say whether he expects major financial backing, and said he was focused on the grass roots. Yet Mr. Dans may draw unusual attention thanks to his association with Project 2025. 'The number of Democrat tears shed over Project 2025 would probably cure any drought in this country,' Mr. Dans said. 'That said, they were right, they did see it as the existential event to the deep state' in the form of Mr. Trump's aggressive approach to remaking government. Mr. Dans, 56, grew up in the Baltimore suburbs and obtained two degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before studying law at the University of Virginia, where he was active in the conservative Federalist Society. He spent years in Manhattan, working at several corporate law firms, before starting his own firm. 'I'm an original Trump guy — I date back to the Trump Shuttle,' Mr. Dans said, saying he was an admirer of Mr. Trump from his early days as a rising businessman, which included operating an airline from 1989 to 1992. After supporting Mr. Trump in his first presidential run, Mr. Dans hoped to land a job in the administration. That opportunity didn't come until 2019, when he was hired as an adviser in the Housing and Urban Development department; six months later, he jumped to the Office of Personnel Management, the primary human resources agency of the federal government. His signature achievement during that stint was helping enact Schedule F, a new job classification created in the final weeks of the first Trump administration that made it easier to fire federal employees who previously had civil service protections. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. revoked Schedule F by executive order as one of his first official acts; Mr. Trump reinstated it on Inauguration Day this year. Mr. Dans says his family moved to Charleston, S.C., where his wife is from, in the second half of the first Trump presidency; at the time she was pregnant with their fourth child. In early 2022, he joined the Heritage Foundation and started its 2025 Presidential Transition Project, best known as Project 2025. The project's goal was to seed the ground for a future Republican president by preparing lists of specific policy goals and vetted job candidates. Mr. Dans brought in contributors from more than 50 right-of-center organizations and within a year he put out the project's 920-page policy book, 'Mandate for Leadership.' Despite its ambitious, far-reaching goals, the document largely remained out of the public consciousness until last year, when Democrats used it as a point of attack on Mr. Trump, then the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency. As Democrats increasingly focused on it, Mr. Trump — who had previously praised Project 2025 — publicly disowned it in July of last year, saying he had nothing to do with it and had 'no idea who is behind it.' Mr. LaCivita also publicly distanced the campaign from the initiative. 'Anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you,' Mr. LaCivita said in a statement at the time. By the end of that month, Mr. Dans was out at Heritage. That September, he told The New York Times that he had been 'blindsided' by the response, and criticized the way Mr. LaCivita and Mr. Trump's top adviser, Susie Wiles, were running the campaign. Heritage fired back with accusations that Mr. Dans had been pushed out over workplace behavior issues, but after Mr. Trump's victory, Heritage walked back its comments, saying that the 'previously reported concerns did not involve any issues with his integrity or inappropriate/offensive behavior towards women' and that the two sides had 'agreed to resolve' their differences. And despite myriad headlines about the falling-out between Mr. Dans and Heritage, he called any claims of a divisive split 'fake news.' Kevin D. Roberts, the Heritage Foundation president, did not respond to a message seeking comment about Mr. Dans's campaign. Mr. Dans has recently spent much of his time in South Carolina, and has repeatedly praised Mr. Trump's policy agenda, calling his executive orders a kind of vindication, given how many of them have aligned with Project 2025. 'It's beyond my wildest dreams,' he told Politico in March. In April, he wrote a wide-ranging essay in The Economist that cast himself as a staunch defender of Mr. Trump and his agenda and attacked federal judges and Democrats. It also has the feel of an early policy paper for a man with ambitions for public office. 'To make America run again, its government needs to be restored to one of, by and for the people, not a cadre of unelected, revolving-door bureaucrats,' Mr. Dans wrote. 'How does this all play out? Will Mr. Trump rebuild an America First skyline or will the malaise of the status quo win out? My bet's on Trump the builder.'
