Annie Andrews Stuns Trump Pick to Win South Carolina Senate Seat After 28 Years

Photo: Sam Wolfe/AP via Al Jazeera (Annie Andrews speaks to supporters during a campaign stop in Columbia, South Carolina, 29 October 2026)

Democrat Annie Andrews has pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the US midterm elections, winning a Senate seat in South Carolina that Republicans had held for 28 years. She beat Darline Graham, the candidate handpicked by President Donald Trump, in a state Trump carried by 18 percentage points just two years ago.

"I think we just made some history," Andrews said on Tuesday night after the results came in. She was right. South Carolina had not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since 1998, and almost no one outside her campaign thought this seat was in play until the final weeks.

The seat itself tells the story of how strange this race became. It belonged to Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator since 2002, who died suddenly in July at the age of 71. His younger sister Darline, 62, was appointed by Governor Henry McMaster to finish his term, becoming the first woman ever to represent South Carolina in the Senate. She then won a special primary runoff for the Republican nomination with Trump's endorsement and ran for a full six-year term.

But the appointment did not settle the race. It opened it up. Many voters, including Republicans, thought Graham was unqualified for the job. During a primary debate she said she was "not that informed on national security" and that "national security is not my thing". She had spent nearly 30 years in obscure state government roles, most recently as head of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, and she entered the Senate with little experience on the national stage.

Trump still threw his full weight behind her. He endorsed her in the special primary, campaigned alongside her in the final stretch, and held a rally in the state last week as the race tightened. It was not enough. Polls that once showed a safe Republican seat showed a tie in the final days, and on election night the Associated Press called the race for Andrews less than three hours after the polls closed.

Andrews, 45, is a paediatrician from Charleston and a mother of three. She ran on lowering costs for working families, expanding affordable healthcare, protecting reproductive rights and opposing endless wars. Al Jazeera reported she had pledged to take no money from corporate political action committees, and that she outraised Graham by more than $22 million, mostly through grassroots donations. Reuters reported Republican outside groups poured $27 million into holding the seat, while Democratic groups invested $24 million to flip it.

On Tuesday night, Andrews said Graham had called her and congratulated her on her win. In her victory speech, she told supporters: "This Senate seat doesn't belong to one family, one party, or to Washington, DC. It belongs to you and it always will." She added: "Nobody in Washington recruited me to run. Nobody handed me a seat in the United States Senate. And nobody wrote me a script. I owe no one in Washington anything."

The result matters far beyond one state because of the Senate maths. Democrats needed a net gain of four seats to overturn the Republicans' 53-47 majority. Andrews' win, together with Roy Cooper's win in North Carolina, gave them two of those seats. By Wednesday morning, James Talarico's win in Texas gave them a third, leaving them one net seat short of a majority, with several battleground races still uncounted.

That wider picture is why this night felt like a wave. Jon Ossoff held his Senate seat in Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected a US governor, also in Georgia, and Democrats were projected to win control of the US House. Andrews' win was the most unlikely of the set, in the reddest state of them all, and that is why it will be remembered as the upset of the night.

For Pakistan, the stakes are not distant. A Senate that flips, or even comes close, changes what Trump can do for the rest of his term, including on the war with Iran that has already fed into fuel prices at home, and on foreign policy more broadly. A president who loses his grip on Congress faces investigations, blocked bills and a much harder path to the policies he campaigned on.

One caution still applies. A called race is not a certified result, and the final Senate majority will only be clear when the remaining battleground counts finish. But the direction of the night is no longer in doubt: in South Carolina, a seat everyone assumed was safe turned, and a paediatrician who was written off early beat a president's pick in his own stronghold.

Sources

Reuters: Democrat Annie Andrews wins US Senate seat in South Carolina upset

Al Jazeera: Democrat Annie Andrews flips South Carolina's Senate seat

USA Today: Democrat Annie Andrews wins SC Senate race in major upset over Darline Graham

Watch for the final Senate seat count and whether Democrats find the one more net seat they need for a majority.

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