Sullivan's Island Libertarian Keith Blandford is the first to announce his intention to mount a primary challenge against Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham in the GOP primary, filing paperwork to form an exploratory committee to evaluate running on both the Republican and Libertarian tickets.

Blandford, who has run for Congress twice as a Libertarian, most recently in the 2012 election against 1st District Rep. Tim Scott, says he plans to take advantage of a South Carolina law that lets a candidate run under multiple parties, allowing him to force Graham, who would be running for a third term, into a primary fight.