Annie Andrews becomes South Carolina's first woman elected to US Senate

Annie Andrews, a Democrat and paediatrician, won the United States Senate election in South Carolina on Tuesday, 3 November 2026, becoming the first woman elected to the Senate from the state. The Associated Press called the race for Andrews over Republican Senator Darline Graham, who had been appointed to the seat after the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham. Andrews is also the first Democrat elected to the Senate from South Carolina since 1998. In her remarks after the result, she thanked Republicans and independents who backed her and said the seat belongs to the state's voters, not to one family, one party or Washington.

South Carolina has been one of the most reliably Republican states in US national elections. President Donald Trump carried it by 18 points in 2024, and the state had not sent a Democrat to the Senate in almost three decades. A Democratic win there was seen as a long shot before polling day, and its size makes it one of the clearest signs of the swing in this year's midterms.

The result is also a milestone for women in American politics. South Carolina has now elected a woman to the Senate for the first time. Andrews built her campaign around her medical work rather than a long political career. She ran for the House of Representatives in 2022 and lost, and returned four years later to win a statewide race.

Her win is part of a wider trend in this election. The American Academy of Pediatrics reported that voters sent three paediatricians to Congress on the same night. Andrews made her medical background central to her pitch, promising to focus on patients' access to care and on prices, and named the defence of Medicaid, the public health programme for people on low incomes, as her first task in the Senate.

Her message on the night was aimed beyond her own party. She thanked Republicans and independents and said she had received a call from Graham conceding, and she thanked Graham for her public service, according to reports. Her line that the seat did not belong to "one family" was a reference to the Graham family, whose members had held the seat.

Peepals calculation: Trump won South Carolina by 18 percentage points in 2024. On the reported count, Andrews leads by about 4.4 points (51.1 − 46.7). That is a shift of about 22 points in the margin between the two parties' candidates, from an 18-point Republican lead to a 4.4-point Democratic lead (18 + 4.4 = 22.4). This compares different races and different years, and is not a measure of how individual voters changed. Our calculation from the reported figures.

Short-term: Andrews will join the Senate as one of its newest members, with health care and Medicaid as her stated priorities. Her win adds to the Democrats' gains in this midterm.

Long-term: A Democratic senator from South Carolina changes the political map for future elections, and her win may encourage more women, and more doctors, to run for office in states long seen as safe for one party.

Who is affected: South Carolina voters; the US Senate and its balance of power; Medicaid recipients whose programme she has pledged to defend; and women in American politics, for whom this is a first in the state.

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