WASHINGTON (AP) — A chief architect ofProject 2025, Paul Dans, is launching a Republican primary challenge toSen. Lindsey Grahamin South Carolina, joining a crowded field that will test the loyalties ofPresident Donald Trumpand his MAGA movement in next year's midterm election. Dans told The Associated Press the Trump administration'sfederal workforce reductionsandcuts to federal programsare what he had hoped for indrafting Project 2025. But he said there's "more work to do,"particularly in the Senate. "What we've done with Project 2025 is really change the game in terms of closing the door on the progressive era," Dans said in an AP interview. "If you look at where the chokepoint is, it's the United States Senate. That's the headwaters of the swamp." Dans, who is set to formally announce his campaign at an event Wednesday in Charleston, said Graham has spent most of his career in Washington and "it's time to show him the door." Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to Graham's campaign who co-managedPresident Donald Trump's 2024 bid, predicted in a statement to the AP that Dans' campaign would "end prematurely." "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," LaCivita said. Challenging the long-serving Graham, who has routinely batted back contenders over the years, is something of a political long shot in what is fast becoming a crowded field ahead of the November 2026 midterm election that will determinecontrol of Congress. Trump early on gave his endorsement of Graham,a political confidant and regular golfing partnerof the president, despite their on-again-off-again relationship. Graham, in announcing he would seek a fifth term in the Senate, also secured the state's leading Republicans, Sen.Tim Scottand Gov.Henry McMaster, tochair his 2026 run. He has amassed millions of dollars in his campaign account. Other candidates, including Republicanformer South Carolina Lt. Gov. André Bauer, a wealthy developer, andDemocratic challenger Dr. Annie Andrews, have announced their campaigns for the Senate seat in an early start to the election season, more than a year away. Graham, in an appearance Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," did not discuss his reelection campaign but fielded questions on topics including his push to release "as much as you can" from the case files onJeffrey Epstein, something many of Trump's supporterswant the government to do. Dans, an attorney who worked in the first Trump administration as White House liaison to the office of personnel management, said he expects to have support from Project 2025 allies, as well as the ranks of Trump's supporters in the state who have publicly tired of Graham. After Trump left the White House, Dans, now a father of four, went to work at the Heritage Foundation, often commuting on weekdays to Washington as heorganized Project 2025. The nearly 1,000-page policy blueprint, with chapters written by leading conservative thinkers, calls fordismantling the federal government and downsizing the federal workforce, among other right-wing proposals for the next White House. "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," Dans said, noting he compiled much of the book from his kitchen table in Charleston. Among the goals, he said, was to "deconstruct the administrative state," which he said is what the Trump administration has been doing, pointing in particular to former Trump adviserElon Musk's workatthe Department of Government Efficiencyshuttering federal offices. Dans and Heritageparted waysin July 2024 amid blowback over Project 2025.It catapulted into political culturethat summer during the presidential campaign season, asDemocrats and their alliesshowcased the hard-right policy proposals — from mass firings to budget cuts — as a dire warning of what could come in a second Trump term. Trumpdistanced himself from Project 2025, and his campaign insisted it had nothing to do with his own "Agenda 47." Dans is launching his campaign with a prayer breakfast followed by a kick-off event at a historic venue in Charleston. ___ Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina, and can be reached athttp://x.com/MegKinnardAP.
