Pediatrician and Democrat Annie Andrews defeated appointed Republican incumbent Sen. Darline Graham in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate election in South Carolina, becoming the first woman and the first Democrat since 1998 elected to represent the state in the chamber. The Associated Press called the race at 10:41 p.m. EST as 2026 US election results rolled in across the country, confirming a full six-year term for the 45-year-old challenger.
Graham, 62, conceded the election on Tuesday night from her campaign watch party in Columbia and told supporters she had called Andrews to congratulate her on the win, South Carolina Public Radio reported. Speaking at her election night watch party in Charleston, Andrews pledged to represent every South Carolinian in Washington, including residents who did not vote for her.
The victory flips a seat Republicans had held for more than two decades and gives Democrats one of the four net pickups needed to overturn the 53-47 Republican majority and retake control of the U.S. Senate, alongside wins in Texas, Ohio and North Carolina, according to The Washington Post. Before Tuesday, South Carolina had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since Ernest “Fritz” Hollings won his final term in 1998.
How Annie Andrews Built Her Campaign
Andrews ran on healthcare access and affordability, lowering medication and gas prices, and fighting Washington corruption. She also broke with Graham over foreign policy and trade. While Graham aligned closely with President Donald Trump and said she fully trusted him on tariffs and the war with Iran, Andrews called the conflict “illegal” and criticized its impact on fuel costs. In September, Andrews said she wanted to “find our way out of this illegal, unconstitutional billion-dollar-a-day war overseas,” The Guardian reported.
Throughout the campaign, Andrews sought to separate herself from national Democrats on several social issues. In the final month of the race, she drew criticism from LGBTQ+ advocates for airing a television ad in which she referred to trans women as “biological men” and stated she did not “support and haven’t ever performed gender surgery for minors.” That messaging contrasted with her record in 2022, when she described South Carolina’s Save Women’s Sports Act as “actively harmful” and wrote on X, “I will always support trans youth.”
National Democratic groups celebrated the outcome on Tuesday night. Lauren French, a spokesperson for the Senate Majority PAC, said in a statement reported by South Carolina Public Radio that “Darline Graham got her job by appointment and spent four months acting like it was hers by birthright. Donald Trump flew in to prop her up, Washington Republicans poured in money, and South Carolina tonight said no thanks.”
French added that “Annie Andrews earned this seat the old-fashioned way, by asking for every vote and promising to lower costs and fight corruption. For the first time in decades, South Carolina is sending a Democrat to the Senate, and Andrews will build a better future for families there.”
Background on the Special Primary and Campaign Spending
The contest was reshaped in July when longtime Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham died suddenly at age 71, prompting an August special primary to fill his place on the general election ballot. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham’s sister and the former commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, to serve in the Senate before she won the August 11 Republican primary.
Although Trump carried South Carolina by 18 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election, the Senate race tightened in the closing weeks. A New York Times/Siena poll released the week before Election Day showed Andrews and Graham tied at 48% each.
Graham’s lack of national political experience became a central issue after an August primary debate in which she admitted she was “not that informed on national security” when asked about U.S. policy on Taiwan. Trump publicly urged Graham to run, campaigned for her in the state, and attacked Andrews using a transphobic slur. Outside Republican groups also spent heavily to defend the seat: Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC contributed $827,000 in August, and the Senate Leadership Fund invested $5 million in October, CBS News reported.
While Darline Graham became South Carolina’s first female senator through her July appointment, Andrews is the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate by the state’s voters, nearly a century after Hattie Caraway of Arkansas became the first woman elected to the chamber in 1932. As of October, 15 U.S. states, including Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey and Vermont, had never had a woman serve as a U.S. senator.