WASHINGTON - At Jim DeMint's election-night victory party, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham announced the birth of an all-Republican S.C. delegation to the U.S. Senate.

Graham told the cheering GOP throng that no longer would South Carolina have only one vote to offer Republican President Bush in the Senate.

"We've got two!" he said.

The crowd cheered its Senate duo - Graham, who succeeded 100-year-old Republican Strom Thurmond in 2003, and DeMint, who today succeeds retiring Democrat Fritz Hollings, 83.

Not since 1964, when Thurmond jumped from the Democratic camp to become a Republican, has South Carolina fielded two U.S. senators of the same party.

Not since Reconstruction has the state sent two Republicans to the Senate.

For much of the past four decades, Hollings and Thurmond disagreed on most major issues: abortion, taxes and the decision to go to war, to name a few.

They routinely canceled out each other's votes.

"The last time we had two [senators] of the same party was 40 years ago," said former U.S. Rep. Tommy Hartnett, R-S.C. "It makes a big difference, especially when the president's party is in power" in Congress.

Translation: South Carolina will benefit from having two senators directly connected to the most powerful of power brokers.

When it comes to securing projects for a state or getting judicial appointments through the Senate, he said, a united front works best.

Thurmond, who died in December 2003, and Hollings retired with 86 years of service combined. That's a blow to the state, Hartnett said, "but what we lost in seniority we may make up in unity."

Now, despite Graham's and DeMint's promises to represent all South Carolinians, Democrats are feeling a bit left out.

Russell Holliday, whose family runs the Democrats' annual Galivants Ferry Stump Speaking rally, already is pining for at least one Democratic South Carolinian in the Senate.

"Most people in South Carolina have lived their whole lives having a senator in each party," she said. "If there was a Democrat in the White House or a Republican in the White House, you were covered."

Republicans might be feeling empowered, but the dividends to be accrued by two Republican senators can be overrated.

"It's not the case that George Bush was just waiting to heap federal dollars on us the moment we got rid of that last Democratic senator," Winthrop University political science professor Scott Huffmon said.

S.C. politics have been shifting toward the GOP for decades, so Hollings' departure this year doesn't mark a major change, Huffmon said.

If the state has more leverage in Washington, it won't be noticeable to the average South Carolinian.

Senate historian Don Ritchie adds another cautious note: Senators from the same party don't always work as well together as Democratic-Republican pairs.

There are numerous examples to choose from.

In South Carolina, Thurmond and Hollings knew where they agreed and where they disagreed and decided to respect those differences. Their relationship remained cordial for four decades.

"Quite often, the best relationships in the Senate are from senators from opposite parties," Ritchie said. "They never go to the same fund-raisers. They're not competing for the same headlines."

Mississippi Republicans Trent Lott and Thad Cochran vied in 1996 to succeed Bob Dole as Senate GOP leader.

In New York, Democrats Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton butt heads continually.

Graham and DeMint say that won't happen to them.

"We talk a lot," DeMint said. "About Social Security. Setting up our offices. Our staffs. I really enjoy working with him."