The late Sen. Lindsey Graham ranked among the bottom half of Congress’ big earners despite more than three decades in office and a top role leading the GOP.
Graham, 71, died Saturday night with a net worth of nearly $1.5 million, leaving the senator, who had a modest upbringing in South Carolina, ranked at 294th in wealth among the 535 voting members of Congress, according to data from the Quiver Quantitative tracker.
As a point of contrast, Graham’s personal wealth is a drop compared to Congress’ wealthiest member, fellow Sen. James Justice (R-WV), whose net worth is estimated at more than $664 million, according to Quiver Quantitative.
Both men earned a Senate salary of $174,000 a year.
Despite a 31-year career in Congress that catapulted Graham to the center of power in the Senate, the South Carolina native has never strayed too far from his humble roots.
Graham grew up in a blue-collar family in the small town of Central, where his parents ran a restaurant and pool hall known as the Sanitary Cafe. A young Graham lived in the room right behind the family business.
The late senator previously credited his working-class upbringing — in which he helped his parents run their restaurant — with pushing him to be the first person in his family to go to college.
But while he was attending the University of South Carolina, both his parents died of illness just 15 months apart from each other, leaving Graham to legally adopt his then-13-year-old sister and get her through her education.
After earning his law degree, Graham joined the Air Force and then made his debut in Congress as a representative in 1995 and then a senator in 2003, where he led the GOP’s foreign policy issues.
Graham’s net wealth remained relatively consistent over the past decade, with the senator mostly trading in mutual funds and corporate bond funds.
The senator, who never married and had no children, also owned a townhouse near the Capitol that was estimated at $890,000 in value, as well as a home in Seneca, South Carolina.
During the lead-up to his failed 2016 presidential bid, The Center for Responsive Politics group ranked Graham among the least wealthy members of the Senate for 10 straight years.
Graham died of a “brief and sudden illness” on Saturday evening following a trip to Ukraine, according to his office. His preliminary cause of death was a ruptured aorta brought on by chronic heart disease, the DC medical examiner’s office found.
