President Donald Trump is headed back to South Carolina on Thursday, as Republicans grow increasingly worried that Sen. Darline Graham’s once-safe seat could be slipping away.

“It’s a f—-ing train wreck,” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said of the race on Wednesday. “It’s a mess.”

Mace told MS NOW that, in both public and private polling, Graham is up in some surveys and down in others, prompting concern among South Carolina Republicans.

“It’s not good,” she said.

A South Carolina GOP official who had also seen private polling on the race struck a similar note, telling MS NOW the election is “tighter than where it needs to be.”

The Republican, who requested anonymity to discuss the race without prompting backlash from the party, said the amount of capital Republicans are allocating toward South Carolina — both in dollars and in the president’s time — was jarring.

“The fact that we’re having to spend time and resources in South Carolina is wild,” the official said.

“The president’s taken a lot of time to go to a lot of different states, including ours,” the GOP official added. “And a lot of that is arguably avoidable, or was avoidable.”

Trump is scheduled to visit South Carolina for the second time in the past two weeks — his third visit in three months — as Graham’s campaign faces a series of recent bad breaks.

On Wednesday, a poll from The New York Times/Siena University reported that Graham and Democrat Annie Andrews were tied at 48%. On Monday, former South Carolina governors — one Democrat and one Republican — issued a joint endorsement for Andrews. And on Friday, the son of South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman penned an op-ed saying he couldn’t vote for Graham.

“There is no true conservative to vote for in this election,” Norman’s son, Warren, wrote.

(Norman lost to Graham in the August primary, but he carried the area where Trump is visiting — Rock Hill, South Carolina, Norman’s hometown — by 28 points.)

The gloomy assessment from Republicans comes with just five days to go until Election Day, as South Carolina’s Senate seat — and the party’s overall control of the Senate — hang in the balance.

The ruby-red Palmetto State hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1998, but polls show this year could be the one to break that streak.

As Trump lands in the state, some Republicans see the visit as a double-edged sword.

On one hand, Republicans say Trump has an innate ability to turn out his base, a bloc of voters that is crucial to Graham’s winning coalition.

“He’s going to have to drag her across the finish line,” Mace said of Trump. “If MAGA doesn’t show up to vote on Tuesday, she loses.”

But on the other hand, Republicans warn that some voters could be turned off by Trump’s heavy involvement in the race. The president encouraged South Carolina Gov. H.R. McMaster to appoint Graham to finish her brother’s term. He also urged Graham to jump into the race for the full six-year term. And once she did, the president endorsed her.

“He’s trying to force-feed the candidate for her victory with the people in South Carolina,” Norman said.

Mace used an even more vivid metaphor. “This was shoved down their throat,” she said, “and they don’t like it.”

The sentiment feeds into a broader concern among voters that Graham is only on the ticket because of her last name, a whisper that has grown louder throughout her three-month crash course in elected politics.

“They don’t believe in nepotism,” Mace said.

Of course, plenty of Republicans insist that Graham is in fine shape. A South Carolina GOP strategist, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the race, said Trump’s visit would help her campaign.

“Among the voters that we need to energize and get out to the polls, he is effective,” the operative said. “The people who don’t like Trump, or don’t like the Republican Party, were not going to vote for us anyway.”

But the data suggests that Graham has her work cut out for her on bringing Republicans home.

The New York Times/Siena poll found that just 80% of Republicans were backing Graham — a strikingly low figure compared with the 97% of Democratic support Andrews has secured. Notably, the poll was conducted after Trump rallied twice in the state.

The lagging GOP dynamic is personified by Norman. The South Carolina Republican has said on countless occasions that he plans to vote for Graham, citing a unity pledge he previously signed. But it’s clear he’s not excited about it.

Norman told MS NOW he had no plans to campaign with Graham in the final stretch, noting that he declined an invite to join her on the trail a month ago. Norman also refused to say Graham’s name when asked three times who he was voting for, simply responding, “I support the Republican candidate.”

He also questioned whether Graham had any political opinions beyond Trump.

“What position does she have other than she likes Donald Trump?” he asked.

A write-in campaign is underway for Norman, but he says he’s not involved.

The question of Graham’s beliefs hits on her biggest vulnerability: Many voters are still wondering who she is and what she stands for, and they remain skeptical of her qualifications after she said she was “not that informed on national security” on the debate stage in August.

“Her debate performance in the runoff hurt her tremendously,” the South Carolina GOP official, who had seen polling after the debate, said. “And it’s shaking people’s confidence that, like, who are we electing?”

The numbers also reflect that narrative. Twenty-six percent of likely voters polled by The New York Times/Siena said they were voting for Andrews because they had a negative view of Graham’s character or competence. Of that group, 48% were Republicans.

Supporters of Graham have chalked up those dips to the short runway she has had to introduce herself to voters. Wednesday’s rally comes just three months after her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, died.

“Time has not ever been on our side,” the South Carolina GOP strategist said.

But Norman said the president’s actions speak louder than projected optimism and spin.

Asked if Graham’s campaign was in trouble, he pointed to the president’s travel.

“Do you think he’d be coming down here for the second time to South Carolina if she wasn’t?” Norman asked. “No.”

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From MS Now.