South Carolina’s decades-long Republican senate grip broke early Tuesday as Democratic pediatrician Annie Andrews defeated Republican Sen. Darline Graham, handing Democrats an unexpected pickup in a deep-red state that President Donald Trump carried by more than 17 percentage points in 2024, NBC News projects.
Andrews will become the state’s first Democratic senator in more than 20 years, upending a contest that party strategists initially viewed as a safe defense for the GOP. The race transformed after Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham in July to complete the remaining term of her late brother, longtime Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly from a heart problem.
Darline Graham Struggles During Republican Primary Debate
Stepping into politics for the first time, Darline Graham launched her campaign from scratch in the middle of the election cycle. She quickly faced intense scrutiny over her policy fluency, most notably during an August Republican primary debate where she admitted she was not that informed on national security
when pressed about Taiwan and the South China Sea. During that same debate, she mistakenly claimed South Carolina is home to 50 million people.
.@AnnieAndrewsMD can pull off this race. We had a steep uphill battle in ‘20 but the Democratic stars are aligning for Annie and S. C. Democrats this year! I ran against a well-funded incumbent with Trump on the ballot. Annie is running for an OPEN seat, against an opponent… https://t.co/JIdETajvum
By September, the Cook Political Report shifted the race from solidly Republican
to likely Republican.
A late October poll from The New York Times and Siena Research Institute showed the candidates effectively tied, with Graham leading by less than one percentage point in a state that had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1998.
Heavy Outside Spending and Late Campaign Strategy
As polls tightened, both parties flooded the Palmetto State with cash and high-profile visits. President Trump traveled to South Carolina to rally for Graham, declaring at a campaign event that supporters should keep fighting.
National political action committees poured millions into the closing weeks. The Senate Leadership Fund, a top Republican super PAC, spent $13 million to boost Graham, while the Senate Majority PAC deployed a last-minute $750,000 digital buy for Democrats. On the ground, Andrews vastly outspent her opponent during the final pre-election fundraising window, raising more than $4 million—primarily from online donors—and spending over $4.6 million in two weeks. Graham’s campaign raised about $90,000 and spent $65,000 over the same period.
Former Governors Join Forces to Back Andrews
Andrews built a broad coalition by securing endorsements from prominent figures across the political spectrum, including former Republican Gov. David Beasley and former Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges, who appeared together in a campaign video backing her bid. She also picked up support from former state Sen. Katrina Shealy.
BREAKING: Senate Majority PAC is launching our first $750K statewide ad campaign in South Carolina! The choice is clear: an empty suit controlled by special interests or a fighter who will take them on, fight corruption, and lower costs. pic.twitter.com/solLjPhHvd
Throughout the final weeks, the candidates clashed sharply over national issues and past affiliations. Graham criticized Andrews for her work as a senior adviser to Everytown for Gun Safety, arguing that the Democratic nominee was deceiving voters on Second Amendment stances. Andrews countered by portraying Graham as an unqualified rubber stamp for presidential policies. Meanwhile, Graham made a notable break from Trump shortly before the election over foreign policy, telling reporters she would put the pressure on Russia to end the war and get gas prices down
because she did not trust Vladimir Putin or Russia.
Despite having zero prior experience in elected office, Darline Graham had taken a fairly active role in bolstering her brother’s political aspirations by frequently featuring in his promotional commercials. I have always looked up to Lindsey,
she said in a campaign ad for his 2014 reelection. She was abruptly thrust into the political spotlight after her brother, a U.S. Senate stalwart, died seeking his fifth term. Given the close bond between the siblings, the decision by Henry McMaster to select Darline Graham to serve out the remainder of her brother’s term was praised. Lindsey Graham helped raise his younger sister after their parents’ early deaths.
Her mother died from complications of Hodgkin’s lymphoma when Darline was 11 years old, and she was buried the day before Darline Graham’s 12th birthday. Fifteen months later, her father died of a massive heart attack, leaving Lindsey Graham at age 22 as a senior at the University of South Carolina. Transitioning from supporting a political figure to being one proved to be a difficult task for Darline Graham.
The race attracted extensive attention from pollsters, including a survey of 1,200 likely voters in South Carolina conducted from September 28-29, 2026, which had a margin of error of 2.83 percent. A previous InsiderAdvantage survey also showed Graham with a slight lead with 45.1 percent compared to Andrews’ 43.2 percent, while another InsiderAdvantage poll showed Graham with 46 percent compared to Andrews’ 45 percent, with Libertarian Kasie Whitener at 2 percent, Constitution Party nominee Mark Hackett at 3 percent, and 4 percent undecided.
Shannon Bridgmon, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina, noted that Lindsey Graham’s death fundamentally changed the race and that although Darline Graham was technically running as an incumbent, she had been in the upper chamber for only a few months, functioning effectively as an open race. Furman University professor Danielle Vinson observed that Democrats haven’t had much to get excited about in state politics for a long time.
Voter reactions varied widely across the state. Carl Hokanson, an independent who used to be a Republican and never cast a ballot for Trump, dismissed Graham’s run as absurd and noted she struggled to read a prepared statement, alluding to her questioning of former special counsel Jack Smith during a recent Senate committee meeting. Renee Harvey of Charleston, who worked on Andrews’ unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2022 and was an early backer of her Senate run, emphasized the need for bipartisanship, calling Andrews a middle-of-the-road candidate.
Following a New York Times survey indicating a dead heat, Fox News shifted the race category from lean Republican to a toss-up, representing a dramatic change in a region where her brother had secured a 10-percentage-point victory in the 2020 reelection cycle. Denise Spreen, a 77-year-old resident of Fort Mill who moved there 10 years ago from North Carolina, shared that despite a long family history of voting Republican, she decided she could not support Lindsey Graham after he aligned with Trump, declaring it was time to go.
Earlier coverage: New poll shows Darline Graham and Annie Andrews tied in Senate race
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