NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) – With two weeks to go until Iowans head to the polls in the first vote of the 2016 primary season, Republican front-runner Donald Trump ramped up his attacks against rival Ted Cruz on Friday, while Jeb Bush scored a key endorsement for his White House bid.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham announced he was backing Jeb Bush for the Republican presidential nomination, praising the former Florida governor’s approach to national security.
“I have concluded without any hesitation, any doubt, that Jeb Bush is worthy to be commander-in-chief on day one,” Graham said Friday at a joint press conference with Bush.
As South Carolina’s senior senator, Graham has been a coveted endorsement for some candidates running for the Republican nomination because he holds clout among establishment Republicans in South Carolina, one of the critical early voting primary states. Bush was initially considered a serious contender for the Republican nomination for president, but his campaign eventually lagged behind candidates like Trump and Cruz, who have each positioned themselves as anti-establishment alternatives.
Graham noted that Bush was the lone candidate in Thursday’s debate to explicitly reject Trump’s continued call to indefinitely ban non-citizen Muslims from entering the United States.