Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the hawkish conservative and vocal critic of President Obama’s foreign policies, on Sunday said he would give a presidential run “a try.”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m going to give it a try,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week” when asked whether he could win the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.
“I think I can win South Carolina,” he added. “I wouldn’t be talking to you. First step into Iowa was very positive. The way a guy like me would win is to offer a form of conservatism that would be able to grow the party and be ready to be commander in chief on Day 1.”
Graham recently tested the presidential waters by traveling to Iowa, home of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.
However, conservatives have greeted his potential candidacy with reservations, saying the South Carolinian would lack Tea Party support. And critics argue that his candidacy would be more about influencing the foreign policy platform of the eventual GOP nominee than winning the race.
Though Graham now leads in the polls in South Carolina, a recent survey by NBC News/Marist found that 58 percent of residents in his state said he should not run for the White House.
“A lot of them are Democrats who probably don’t want a Republican running for president,” Graham said of the poll.
“If I got to be president of the United States, I think I could create a pathway forward to straighten out the mess we’re in,” he added. “And we’ll see where that goes.”
