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Endorsing Ralph Norman for Senate: Jim Pfaff on The John Fredericks Show | Aug 12, 2026

Published: August 12, 2026
Network: The John Fredericks Show
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff

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Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff joined John Fredericks on the August 12 edition of The John Fredericks Show — from Indiana, the state where he once ran a gubernatorial campaign — and made news with an on-air Ralph Norman endorsement for the U.S. Senate runoff in South Carolina. Asked directly whether he was endorsing Norman over Darlene Graham, Pfaff answered “Oh, absolutely.” — and gave Fredericks permission to post it: “That’s, that’s my personal endorsement. And I think the man needs to get elected.” The two also covered a Wisconsin primary result Pfaff reads as the “ick factor” on the DSA starting to kick in, and the Indiana state Senate primaries in which, by Fredericks’ count, 7 of 8 incumbent Republicans who blocked redistricting were defeated. Underneath it all ran a single theme: GOP establishment organizations — from the Indiana Chamber of Commerce to the Republican Party of Virginia to John Thune’s Senate operation — keep shutting down the voters’ own agenda.

Topics Covered

• Wisconsin: The Ick Factor on the DSA
• The Supermajorities That Should Exist
• Indiana: 7 of 8 RINOs Primaried Out
• The Endorsement: Ralph Norman for U.S. Senate
• “A Proxy Vote for John Thune”
• Key Takeaways

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Wisconsin: The Ick Factor on the DSA

The conversation opened with a primary result in Wisconsin. Fredericks framed it bluntly — “we got communists winning all over the place” — but noted that Democrats apparently judged Francesca Hong too radical to nominate. Pfaff sees something larger in that outcome:

“I think what happened with Hong last night may be an indication that the ick factor on the DSA is starting to kick in.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

For weeks, Pfaff said, he has been watching for clues that ordinary voters are saying, “I don’t want the communists. I really just don’t want them.” Wisconsin is a useful test case. Madison may be, in his words, “a freak job radical leftist city, just like Bloomington here up the road from me” — a college town, in other words — but the people of Wisconsin as a whole are not radical leftists. He contrasted them with Minnesota, where the Democratic Farm Labor Party stands in for the Democrat Party and, as he put it, “That party has always been a socialist party.” Wisconsin, even in its Democrat ranks, is “more normal people overall, even amongst the Democrat ranks.” We have covered the public’s souring on socialist street politics before in our analysis of the Madison protests and the rule of law.

If the read is right, Pfaff expects it to compound against Democrats going into November. He is not yet convinced Republicans will win — Fredericks had posted an analysis saying they would — but he thinks that is “roughly the track that we’re headed back down” after a start to the year when things were slipping away. And he was pointed about why:

“So, but it’s not because anything Republicans did other than Donald Trump, like what Donald Trump’s doing is fine, but what the Republicans are doing isn’t helping. It’s because Democrats are acting so stupidly.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The Supermajorities That Should Exist

Pfaff’s indictment of Republican leadership came with a counterfactual: what the party would look like if its congressional leaders actually ran their chambers on the agenda Trump voters voted for.

“Just think about the supermajorities we’d have in Congress if John Thune and Mike Johnson decided to govern their caucuses the way that the Trump voters voted for Trump to do what they wanted him to do.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

If they did, he argued, “everybody would be coming on board” — the Save America Act “would’ve been a foregone conclusion a long time ago,” and the country would be back on its way to prosperity through the census, after which, he warned, “it’s gonna be impossible for Democrats to govern again if we don’t keep our elections bad.” The Save America Act fight, and the pressure campaign on the majority leader behind it, is ground we have covered in our analysis of John Thune and the Save America Act.

Indiana: 7 of 8 RINOs Primaried Out

Fredericks then turned to Indiana, where Pfaff was sitting for the interview. Fredericks recounted his network’s two-week bus tour to push two congressional seats’ redistricting for President Trump — an effort he said got “screwed by the RINOs in the state Senate.” Eight of those state senators were up for reelection; MAGA and President Trump primaried all eight. With the final race decided by 3 votes, Fredericks reported the scoreboard: 7 of 8 incumbent Republicans who would not vote for redistricting were kicked out. Pfaff’s reaction: “Totally appropriate. Long, long overdue in Indiana, by the way.” He recalled running a gubernatorial campaign and a slate of state legislative races there in the 1990s — moving the needle enough to start changing the state into this century. But one institution, he said, never let go:

“But the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, which is— they’re not even RINOs, they’re actually pretty much Democrats the way that they want things to go. They totally have controlled the Republican Party and they just got slapped bad and they deserve it big time.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Pfaff gave credit by name: “kudos to my friend Jim Banks, Senator Jim Banks,” who took a real leadership role in the redistricting fight — unlike Senator Todd Young, whom Pfaff likes personally but called “horrible” on this front. And he widened the lens: Indiana is one highlighted example of the same problem “with Republican parties in state by state by state.” The Republican Party of Virginia shut down a local effort in Lynchburg to elect “real Republicans” to city council, knocking it down at the state convention. In Georgia, he has talked to “person after person” — Trump supporters who wanted to change the state — whom Brian Kemp’s organization “were slapping them down every time.”

“I mean, this has all got to stop. It was a great first start in Indiana. We got to do this in every state.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The Endorsement: Ralph Norman for U.S. Senate

The South Carolina Senate race supplied the show’s headline moment. Fredericks laid out the primary math: Darlene Graham took 34% of the vote despite carrying Trump’s endorsement — meaning, as he put it, two-thirds of South Carolina Republicans voted against her — while Ralph Norman’s 24% put him in the runoff, with the rest of the field as conservative or more so. Fredericks’ prediction: Norman wins. Pfaff called that “a very real possibility” and immediately named the first thing that needs to happen:

“Russell Fry needs to come out immediately and endorse Ralph Norman. Ralph, by the way, I just want to say, is a fantastic man, incredibly capable, perfect for this position.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Norman, Pfaff said, didn’t grow up a politician but has served well in Washington “standing up for MAGA values.” He is a House Freedom Caucus man — part of the group that has “been beaten up in over principled MAGA America First policies and spending approaches for years now” — and he knows “how the sausage is being made with all the crap that they put in it, and he rejects that consistently.” Pfaff drew on his own arrival in Washington as chief of staff to Tim Huelskamp in 2010: even with nearly 20 years in politics behind him, and with Huelskamp battle-hardened by 12 years in the Kansas state senate, they discovered how much they still had to learn. The lesson: “You have to have gone through it to be effective.” Ralph already has.

“He’s already battle-tested and he knows from day one what needs to get done. Lindsey’s sister says she’s starting to learn the ways, but we need someone that knows the ways and knows how to get through all this.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

“A Proxy Vote for John Thune”

Why not Darlene Graham? Pfaff issued two cautions. First, “never underestimate the power shortly after his death of the Lindsey Graham operation in South Carolina” — the organization Lindsey Graham built is the reason he was never overthrown, and even without him directing it, it may be working hard for his sister. Second, the runoff coalition: “when you look at the total votes of Mark Sanford, Russell Fry, and Ralph Norman, that wins right there.” Sanford, whom Pfaff described as inward and inclined to do his own thing, may not endorse — but should. Russell Fry, in Pfaff’s words, is “a gimme. He just— listen, you lost, dude.” As for the frontrunner herself:

“I’m sure Lindsey’s sister’s a nice lady, but I’m sorry, she’s gonna do whatever John Thune tells her to say.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

South Carolina, he said, “has been begging for a truly conservative, deeply conservative US senator for a long time” — it is not that Tim Scott is “necessarily all that bad”, but the state needs “something quite a bit more.” Graham “may be a nice lady” and might vote right on a big bill here and there, “but that’s not going to get the job done. She’s not going to be able to move the needle in Washington, D.C.” Fredericks agreed, and reached for a cautionary precedent — a nominee he cheered for on résumé alone and came to regret:

“You know, I don’t want another, hate to say it, Amy Coney Barrett.”
— John Fredericks, The John Fredericks Show

Everything looked right on paper, Fredericks said — Catholic, Notre Dame, pro-life, big family — “But then you really looked in her background and there wasn’t anything there. To really know what she was gonna do.” Pfaff closed the loop the same way: “I don’t want Darlene Graham to be a proxy vote for John Thune.” Fredericks’ answer: “Bingo. We’re on the same page, 100%.”

Key Takeaways

1. Pfaff endorses Ralph Norman – Asked on air, Pfaff answered “Oh, absolutely.” He authorized posting it: “That’s, that’s my personal endorsement. And I think the man needs to get elected.”
2. The runoff math favors Norman – Per Fredericks, Darlene Graham took 34% with Trump’s endorsement — two-thirds of South Carolina Republicans voted against her — while Pfaff notes the combined Sanford, Fry, and Norman votes “wins right there.”
3. Battle-tested is the standard – Norman is a House Freedom Caucus veteran who “knows from day one what needs to get done.” Pfaff’s Huelskamp-era lesson: “You have to have gone through it to be effective.”
4. The Thune proxy warning – Lindsey Graham’s organization is still powerful, and Pfaff’s core objection is that his sister “gonna do whatever John Thune tells her to say.”
5. Indiana showed the playbook – 7 of 8 incumbent RINO state senators who blocked redistricting were primaried out, a rebuke to the Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s control of the party. Pfaff: “We got to do this in every state.”
6. The DSA ick factor is real – Hong’s defeat in Wisconsin may signal voters rejecting the communists — momentum accruing against Democrats going into November “because Democrats are acting so stupidly.”

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About The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.

Originally broadcast Aug 12, 2026 on The John Fredericks Show.