Trump Rallied Twice for Lindsey Graham’s Sister. South Carolina Sent a Democrat to the Senate Anyway

Two weeks before Election Day, President Trump stood in an arena at Clemson University and told South Carolina what it was getting in Sen. Darline Graham. “She’s smart and incredible,” he said. “She’ll never let you down.”

On Tuesday night South Carolina said no. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who had never won a general election, beat Graham for the Senate seat her late brother, Lindsey Graham, held for more than two decades. NBC News projected it just before 10 p.m., and CBS News, the Fox News Decision Desk, ABC News and the Associated Press followed within the hour.

In NBC News’ count late Tuesday, Andrews had 1,032,286 votes, or 51.0%, to Graham’s 946,606, or 46.8%. She is the first Democrat South Carolina has elected to the Senate in nearly three decades.

Trump’s pick, twice over

Graham was not supposed to be on this ballot. Lindsey Graham won renomination in June and died suddenly in July. Gov. Henry McMaster appointed his younger sister to serve out the rest of his term, and with Trump’s urging and support she ran in a special Republican primary to replace him on the November ballot. She beat Rep. Ralph Norman in an August runoff, Fox News reported.

When polls tightened in October, Trump came back. He made two late campaign stops for her, including the Oct. 21 rally at Clemson. A New York Times/Siena poll the week before the election had the race tied at 48%, the Daily Caller noted.

Andrews had run once before. In 2022 she challenged Rep. Nancy Mace in the 1st Congressional District and lost by about 14 points.

The early vote did it

Graham won the voters who showed up on Tuesday. In NBC’s count she beat Andrews on Election Day by 134,314 votes, 529,195 to 394,881.

It wasn’t close to enough. Andrews had already banked a lead of 205,455 votes among South Carolinians who voted early in person, 609,876 to 404,421, and she won the much smaller mail vote by more than two to one.

The Fox News Decision Desk put it bluntly in its call. “Democrats didn’t invest heavily in this race,” it said, “but poor turnout for Graham in conservative areas has allowed Andrews to flip a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator for nearly 30 years.” CBS News’ data desk found Andrews won a majority of independents.

“Nobody handed me a seat”

Andrews ran as an outsider, and against the family name. She also put distance between herself and her party’s left flank, telling Fox News Digital during the campaign that she rejects biological men in women’s sports and gender surgeries for minors.

In her victory speech, she said Graham had called to congratulate her, and thanked her for her service. Then she took a shot at how Graham got the seat in the first place. “This Senate seat does not belong to one family, one party, or to Washington, D.C.,” Andrews said. “It belongs to you.”

She promised to be “a brick wall between Washington, D.C. and South Carolina, even when it means standing up to my own party.”

Not the only one

South Carolina was one of three Republican-held Senate seats Democrats flipped on Tuesday night. Former Gov. Roy Cooper won the open North Carolina seat Sen. Thom Tillis is leaving. In Texas, James Talarico beat Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Sen. John Cornyn, who lost the Republican primary to Paxton, congratulated Talarico and offered to help with his transition.

Graham’s appointed term runs out at the end of the year.