Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham faced challenges from the right and the left in his first bid for reelection.

He managed to fend off the challenge from the right in Tuesday's GOP primary.

Rep. Bob Inglis also parried a challenge for his 4th District Congressional seat, easily defeating Charles Jeter.

Inglis will face the winner of a June 24 runoff between Democrats Paul Corden and Ted Christian.

Graham, who succeeded Sen. Strom Thurmond in 2002, had come under fire in the past couple of years from many conservative Republicans for his support of a compromise on confirmation of judges and an immigration reform plan championed by Sen. John McCain and Sen. Ted Kennedy.

"Tonight is a statement by South Carolinians that principled compromise is the lifeblood of democracy," Graham told supporters gathered in Columbia on Tuesday night. "Those who seek principaled compromise to advance their state and their nation are doing what the voters want."

Buddy Witherspoon, a retired orthodontist from the Columbia area, did not muster enough support to defeat Graham, who won with about two-thirds of the votes.

Witherspoon called himself a conservative Republican and focused primarily on immigration during his campaign, calling the issue one of the gravest problems facing this country.

Graham spent more than $3 million during the primary campaign, about 10 times Witherspoon's bankroll.

Graham will face the winner of the Democratic primary between political newcomers Michael Cone and Bob Conley, who were separated by less than 1,000 votes out of about 140,000 cast with 97 percent of precincts counted.

Inglis is running for a sixth term. He served from 1992-1998, stepped down because of a self-imposed term limit. He ran again in 2004 and won again in 2006.

Jeter is a former regional EPA administrator who lives in Greer.

Corden got about 41 percent of the votes and Christian got about 33 percent of the fewer than 14,000 votes cast in the primary.

In winning the GOP nomination, Inglis got more than twice as many votes as were cast in the Democratic primary.