Dr. Annie Andrews celebrated with supporters in downtown Charleston Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, as the Associated Press declared her the winner of South Carolina’s U.S. Senate Race. To her left was Jaime Harrison, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who lost his own bid for Senate against the late Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2020.
COLUMBIA – Senator-elect Annie Andrews made history with a voting shift for the Democrat across every South Carolina county, as Republicans and independents split their tickets, an analysis of election data shows. Andrews flipped South Carolina’s U.S. Senate seat with 51% of the vote, 4.5 percentage points more than GOP Sen. Darline Graham, according to unofficial results.
Record-breaking turnout and a surge in Democrats’ enthusiasm help explain her win in an election that brought a blue tsunami nationwide. Other states where Democrats flipped U.S. Senate seats long held by a Republican included Maine, North Carolina, and Texas. Broken down by county, Andrews won more votes than the three-month incumbent in 25 of South Carolina’s 46 counties, including traditionally ruby red Greenville and York counties.
Democrats are also celebrating a flip in the coastal 1st Congressional District and a shockingly close finish in the 2nd District held by U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson since 2001. In both races, the margin seems to fall just outside the 1-point-or-less spread that would trigger an automatic recount, according to unofficial results. As of early Friday, The Associated Press had yet to call either contest.
State Democratic Party officials point to shoe-leather campaigning in driving turnout across the state. Since the June primaries, the party’s outreach efforts included 6 million attempts to contact voters by phone or in person; 750 volunteers for the party knocked on doors in the last two weeks, Jay Parmley, state director, told reporters Wednesday.
“We are absolutely convinced that through the volunteer efforts, through the paid efforts, that this made a big difference here to capture this sort of national frustration, national mood,” he said. “We made sure we had folks on the doors, just this constant door turn happening in the background,” added state party Chair Christale Spain.
That also helps explain 10 flips in the state House that erased the chamber’s GOP supermajority. Winning margin for Democrat and Republican
But Democratic enthusiasm didn’t flip any other statewide office in South Carolina. Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson, Joe Wilson’s son, won the governor’s office with the same, 4.5-point margin as Andrews. While that’s the smallest winning spread for a GOP gubernatorial nominee since 2010, when Rep. Nikki Haley defeated Sen. Vincent Sheheen by 4.5 points, it shows Andrews’ win can’t be fully attributed to more Democrats showing up and unenthused Republicans staying home. Wilson received a greater share of votes than Graham in every county. In a state where voters don’t register by party, that’s clear evidence of Republicans crossing over to vote for Andrews over Graham.
Comparing 2024 to 2026 President Donald Trump, whose encouragement and endorsement of Graham prompted her to run, came to South Carolina twice in 10 days to rally support for the younger sister of the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who Trump called his best friend. To bolster turnout, Trump told supporters repeatedly to pretend that he was on the ballot.
What SC voters had to say about the midterm election The results Tuesday show Trump’s popularity waning even in a state
