“While he is definitely a public whipping boy for one subsegment of the party, a lot of people in power recognize how influential he is,” said Scott Huffmon, a political science professor at Winthrop University.

Graham has largely been unchallenged during his career. He positioned himself to replace retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond so efficiently that he faced no opposition in the 2002 primary. He breezed to re-election in 2008 after spending his first six years working with a Republican president and before the rise of the tea party…

The money the senator has amassed for his race means he can run ads almost daily, host free barbecues and ice cream socials and organize the more than 5,000 precinct captains that he claims into a massive get-out-the-vote effort.

Graham’s campaign leaves little doubt that the lawmaker, who while in the U.S. House helped with President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, is still a conservative. One ad harshly criticizes President Barack Obama’s heath care law and promotes Graham’s bill to allow states to opt out of “Obamacare.” His campaign speech includes a promise to get to the bottom of the attack in Benghazi.