U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and state Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum, the Democratic nominee, are fighting for the Senate seat that has been firmly entrenched on the Democrats' side of the aisle for nearly 40 years with Hollings first winning the seat in 1966.
DeMint and Tenenbaum agree on needing to win the war in Iraq, protecting the state's military facilities from an upcoming round of base closures and opposing gay marriage rights.
And both candidates say they possess unique qualities that would make the needs of the Palmetto State reverberate through the halls of the nation's capital.
DeMint, a congressman representing the Upstate since 1998, said his time spent in Washington, D.C., makes him better suited to represent South Carolina in the Senate.
"I know a lot of these folks," he said of his established ties in Congress. "My connections are on both sides of the aisle."
Tenenbaum continues to echo a prominent theme in her campaign that she is an independent Democrat who will not automatically fall in line with congressional Democrats or the party's presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry.
"I won't go to Washington with any ideological agenda or be a rubber stamp for any party," she said. "I am ready to be an independent voice to do whatever it takes to represent our state well."
Both candidates said the training of Iraqi troops needs to be sped up, and both are optimistic about elections taking place there in January.
But Tenenbaum said the war in Iraq can't replace an overall effort to curb terrorism.
"We have to do both," she said. "Sadaam Hussein needed to go."
DeMint said Iraq is the central front in the effort to eradicate terrorism, adding that weapons of mass destruction were never a main reason to invade in his mind.
"If it wasn't a part of the war on terror, you wouldn't see terrorists from all over the world taking their last stand in Iraq," he said.
Ideas and claims on how each candidate wants to reform the nation's tax codes have been battered around the campaign trail with Tenenbaum bashing a 23 percent sales tax she says DeMint supports. But the congressman said he has never backed such a tax plan, but is open to discussing all facets of tax reform.
The candidates also differ on how hate crimes should be prosecuted and punished, with Tenenbaum supporting special legislation and DeMint opposing it.
"We need to have hate crime legislation for groups that are subject to special persecution and violence," Tenenbaum said.
But DeMint believes ideas behind proposed hate crime legislation are flawed and subjective.
"I think every crime is a hate crime, and I think it would be a terrible mistake if our laws started trying to decide if you did a crime because you hated somebody or you just did it to do a crime," he said.
Recent polls suggest that Tenenbaum, who had faced a double-digit deficit throughout most of the campaign, has closed the gap with DeMint in the past month.
The polling gap appeared to dwindle significantly after he said gays and unmarried, pregnant women shouldn't be allowed to teach in public schools.
Although Hollings was able to hold onto his seat as a Democrat for 38 years, South Carolina is largely a Republican state, with Tenenbaum one of two Democrats to hold state office.
"Republicans do have an advantage here, but she got more votes than the governor," Laura Woliver a political science professor at the University of South Carolina, said of the 2002 election.
With 9,455 more voters registered in South Carolina for this year's election than in 2000, Woliver said the Senate race could hinge on whether newly registered voters get out to the polls.
"It's not just the registration, it's the turnout," she said. "I think this is going to be a very close race."