won by a Republican. Rhode Island Incumbent Democrat Jack Reed won re-election to a second term. Reed was an extremely popular senator, with a May Brown University poll showing the incumbent with a 73% approval rating, higher than any other elected lawmaker in the state. Reed's best performance was in Providence County, where he won with over 80% of the vote over Republican Robert Tingle, casino pit boss and nominee for RI-02 in 2000 South Carolina Long-time Incumbent Strom Thurmond decided to retire at the age of 100, becoming the first Centenarian to ever serve in Congress, and at that time was the longest serving Senator in U.S. history (a record later surpassed by West Virginia's Robert Byrd). Republican Lindsey Graham won the open seat. Alex Sanders, the former president of the College of Charleston, entered the race and faced no opposition from South Carolina Democrats, thereby avoiding a primary election. Representative Lindsey Graham had no challenge for the Republican nomination and thus avoided a primary election. This was due in large part because the South Carolina Republicans were preoccupied with the gubernatorial race and also because potential rivals were deterred by the huge financial war chest Graham had amassed early in the campaign. The election campaign between Graham and Sanders was bitterly fought. Graham campaigned that he had a consistent conservative voting record that he claimed closely matched that of outgoing Senator Strom Thurmond. Sanders campaigned on his membership in the NAACP, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the NRA. He said that he was against the death penalty for religious reasons, supported abortion rights, and supported greater government involvement in education. Graham attacked Sanders for these positions consistently throughout the campaign, and Sanders hit back at Graham for wanting to privatize Social Security. Graham won the election by slightly over 10 percent. South Dakota Incumbent Democrat Tim Johnson won re-election to a second term by a margin of 524 votes, defeated Republican incumbent U.S. Representative John Thune. Thune, who was considered a rising star in his party, ran against Tim Johnson, who narrowly won his first senate election in 1996. Thune launched a television advertising campaign mentioning al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, controversially contending that both were seeking nuclear weapons and that the country needed a missile defense system, something Johnson voted against 29 times and that Thune supported. Johnson attacked Thune for politicizing national security. President George