Annie Andrews ties Darline Graham with red-state arithmetic
By Dana Whitfield · Reporting from Washington ·
Pediatrician Annie Andrews has tied the South Carolina Senate race by adopting a centrist platform, proving that Darline Graham’s reliance on national party labels is a losing strategy.
Annie Andrews is winning because she understands the arithmetic of a red state. Senator Darline Graham is losing because she is reciting a script written for a different electorate. A New York Times/Siena poll released Wednesday shows the candidates tied at 48% each.
Graham is relying on the hope that tribal loyalty will override the actual record. That is magical thinking.
The arithmetic of the center
The race is now a dead heat.
Annie Andrews is a pediatrician who has never held public office. She is not running as a national Democrat. She is running as a South Carolinian.
Her coalition is a masterclass in pragmatic positioning. She has support from 97% of Democrats and 59% of independents. Crucially, she holds 22% of Republicans.
This strategy mirrors the 2020 United States Senate election in Georgia, where a candidate capitalized on a shifting internal Republican divide. Andrews is not asking voters to change their party. She is asking them to change their candidate.
The fantasy of the label
Senator Graham has spent the campaign calling Andrews a “socialist” and “Bernie Ocasio Mamdani.” According to MS NOW, Graham claims Andrews is “deceiving the people of South Carolina.”
This is a fantasy. Andrews has stated plainly that “Democrats have failed on the border.” She does not support Medicare for All. She supports no taxes on tips or Social Security.
She has even moved right on social issues. Andrews stated in an ad that she does not support biological men playing women’s sports. She also does not support gender surgery for minors.
No Democrat has won a Senate seat in South Carolina since 1998. To break that streak, a candidate must bypass the toxic national party label.
Andrews is doing exactly that. She is executing the same mechanism as the United States Senate election in West Virginia 2010, where a Democrat won a deep-red state by adopting a centrist, anti-establishment platform to peel away Republican voters.
The institutional failure
The Republican response has been a study in institutional rigidity. President Donald Trump handpicked Graham for this seat. Now he is returning to South Carolina to save her.
The Washington Post reports that Trump will rally with Graham in Rock Hill on Thursday. This is his third visit to the state in three months.
Trump has used an anti-transgender slur to describe Andrews. He is attempting to herd wavering Republicans back into the fold through aggression.
Graham is fighting a ghost. She is attacking a progressive caricature while the actual candidate is peeling off the GOP's flank. Her reliance on Trump's endorsement is a hedge against her own failure to connect with the center.
Annie Andrews will narrowly capture this seat. She will do it by peeling off traditional Republican voters while holding her base. By ignoring the national Democratic playbook and focusing on the boring, workable arithmetic of the Palmetto State, she has made the incumbent irrelevant.