Annie Andrews, a Democratic pediatrician who lost her only previous race, has won South Carolina’s US Senate seat. The Associated Press declared her the winner over Republican Sen. Darline Graham at 10:39 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, according to the AP report published by PBS NewsHour.
She is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from South Carolina since Ernest “Fritz” Hollings in 1998, ABC News 4 reported. She is also the first woman the state has elected to the Senate.
Graham held the seat by appointment after her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, died in July. So this is a flip, and one of the seats that gave Democrats control of both chambers.
A four-point win in a state Trump carried by 18
President Trump won South Carolina by 18 points in 2024, CBS News noted. This time Andrews led Graham 51.1% to 46.7%, with independent Kasie Whitener at 1.2%. Those are the figures NBC News’s results page showed late Wednesday, stamped 11:36 p.m. ET, with about 99% of the expected vote in.
The map moved as much as the margin. Andrews carried Greenville and York, two counties Trump won by about 20 points, NPR’s Gavin Jackson reported on Morning Edition. She won twice as many of the state’s 46 counties as Kamala Harris did in 2024. Turnout passed 2 million ballots, a record for a governor’s election year, driven by high Black turnout, he added.
In 2020, Democrat Jaime Harrison lost to Lindsey Graham by 10 points, as MS NOW recalled.
From a children’s hospital to the ballot
Andrews spent 15 years at MUSC’s Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital in Charleston, Live 5 News reported in 2025. Much of her public profile comes from that work.
In 2021, MUSC described her leading an effort to expand screening and counselling on safe gun storage. “Gun violence is the second leading cause of death for children in this country,” she told the university.
She took that argument to the State House. At a 2025 rally for tighter gun laws, she said: “I never thought I would care for so many children with bullet holes in them.”
Her first campaign, in 2022, ended in defeat. She challenged Republican Rep. Nancy Mace in the Charleston-area 1st District. Live 5 described her that night as a pediatrician who supported abortion access and gun restrictions. Mace won by double digits, according to MS NOW.
A centrist pitch: prices, health care and “South Carolina first”
This time she ran as a centrist. She told voters she was “raised in a Republican household” and that “Democrats have failed on the border,” MS NOW reported on Oct. 28. She said she does not support Medicare for All. She backed ending taxes on tips and Social Security and called Trump’s tariffs “unconstitutional.”
Her core message was cost.
She campaigned on health-care access, affordability and fighting corruption in Washington, according to CBS News. Her statewide swing was called the “Patients and Prices Tour,” ABC News 4 reported. NPR said she also leaned on worries about data centers.
Two former governors, Republican David Beasley and Democrat Jim Hodges, endorsed her.
Her victory speech kept to that line. “I will be a brick wall between Washington, D.C. and South Carolina, even when it means standing up to my own party,” she said, per NPR.
She also said the seat “does not belong to one family, one party or to Washington, D.C.,” in the AP account on PBS NewsHour’s live blog. Republicans who voted for her “took a chance on a pediatrician and a mom of three,” she said, per The Post and Courier.
Trump’s pick, and the attacks on Andrews
Graham, 62, had run the South Carolina Commission for the Blind before Gov. Henry McMaster appointed her, CBS reported. She then beat Rep. Ralph Norman in a special primary runoff, according to The Post and Courier.
Trump hand-picked her, the paper reported. He rallied for her in Myrtle Beach in August. With polls close, he came back for rallies in Clemson on Oct. 21 and Rock Hill on Oct. 29.
MAGA Inc., the super PAC he controls, gave her $827,000 in August, per CBS. The Senate Leadership Fund added $5 million in October. NPR’s Jackson read the result as a sign of Trump’s waning pull in the state.
The campaign was rough. Trump used an anti-transgender slur about Andrews on Truth Social and at rallies, MS NOW reported. She called that “not presidential,” according to WTOC. “If name-calling would help lower gas prices and grocery prices, he can call me all the names he wants,” she said.
Graham argued the moderate pitch was a disguise. She called Andrews a “socialist” and tried to brand her “Bernie Ocasio Mamdani” at their debate, MS NOW reported. She also called Andrews’s centrist ads a “complete lie.” Andrews, in turn, hit Graham’s primary remark that she was “not that informed on national security,” per CBS.
Graham conceded on Tuesday night. “This is a tough cycle, and all of us need to be involved as we chart a path forward,” she said, according to ABC News 4.
Certification, then a seat in a Democratic Senate
Her path to the seat, in five sourced figures:
- Age: mid-40s (CBS News gives 45)
- Years at MUSC’s children’s hospital: 15 (Live 5 News)
- 2022 House race: lost to Nancy Mace by double digits (MS NOW)
- 2026 result: 51.1% to 46.7%, 99% in, 11:36 p.m. ET Wednesday (NBC News)
- Last Democrat elected: Fritz Hollings, 1998 (ABC News 4, Post and Courier)
The results stay unofficial until the state certifies them in the coming days, ABC News 4 reported. The South Carolina Election Commission posts the official count. The new Congress convenes on Jan. 3, 2027.
She will join a Senate her party now runs. It also includes Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, who, unlike her, backs Medicare for All.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats are ready to work with her on lowering costs and corruption, per ABC News 4. Our explainer on what a Democratic Congress can change covers the agenda she joins.
South Carolina also holds the first spot on the Democrats’ 2028 presidential primary calendar, MS NOW reported. That puts its new Democratic senator in front of every candidate who campaigns there.
