South Carolina Democrats are celebrating a stunning victory by Dr. Annie Andrews, who defeated Republican U.S. Sen. Darline Graham by about four percentage points in Tuesday's midterm election. Andrews is the first Democrat elected to the Senate in South Carolina since 1998.
Graham was appointed to the seat following the death of her brother, longtime Sen. Lindsey Graham, earlier this year. President Donald Trump backed her and held rallies alongside Graham, but it wasn't enough.
South Carolina Public Radio's Maayan Schechter spent election night with Graham's supporters. She spoke with WFAE's Nick de la Canal.
Nick de la Canal: So what was the mood like at Graham's election-night party yesterday once the results started coming in?
Maayan Schechter: I would say at about 7 o'clock, when the polls closed, the mood was pretty good. You had a lot of folks chatting. The music was playing.
That took a real turn within the next couple of hours. You saw fewer people in the main hall, where everyone was gathered to hear from Sen. Darline Graham and Attorney General Alan Wilson.
And then the mood turned, I would say, incredibly sour. I had folks walking up to me telling me how mad they were. I could hear people in the crowd say they were frustrated. And then, obviously, that really settled in as the televisions were showing them that Annie Andrews was declared the winner last night.
De la Canal: I mean, this is a state that Donald Trump won by nearly 18 points just two years ago. Lindsey Graham was elected to the Senate four times. So how did Andrews manage to win?
Schechter: She had an incredibly well-organized campaign. But let me, I guess, start with her as a candidate.
She'd run unsuccessfully before for Congress, but she found herself in probably the most perfect year as a Democratic statewide candidate.
She ran a very, very good campaign. She ran very good messaging. She was being hit all the time from Republicans, particularly around social issues like transgender women playing in women's sports or gender reassignment surgery. And she was really able to deflect those verbal blows time after time after time.
So I think her campaign did a very, very good job honing in on messaging, talking about the economy, talking about rural hospitals and Medicaid and inflation and home affordability.
And I think also, look, it doesn't hurt to be well-funded at all, right? And so that allowed her to go around the state — I mean, I was talking to somebody earlier about York County, not too far from you. Darline Graham maybe held an event there, and also obviously when Trump was there, but Annie Andrews was there maybe almost a dozen times. I mean, she was really hitting every single county very, very hard.
So I think she just ran a really good campaign in a really good year for Democrats.
De la Canal: And speaking of York County, Darline Graham faced a tough Republican primary against Congressman Ralph Norman, who's from York County, just south of Charlotte. Norman refused to fully back Graham. Did that play a role? I mean, Andrews did especially well in that part of the state, it seems.
Schechter: I think a little bit. Obviously the write-in campaign that someone had launched for Congressman Ralph Norman didn't come to a percentage ... that really made a massive difference in the race.
But I do think in York County and even throughout the Upstate, you had Republican voters who have been sour on Graham — going back to Lindsey Graham — and really truly felt like they didn't want to have a continuation of that.
I mean, there were campaign signs that said, "Say no to Dynasty Darline."
De la Canal: What have we heard from Andrews since her victory?
Schechter: She has very much been preaching — and she preached this on the trail as well — that we need to come together. There is more that we have in common than truly divides us.
I'm assuming that she is probably already hitting the ground running ... trying to figure out who her future staff is going to be.
De la Canal: Finally, were there any other election results in South Carolina that surprised you last night?
Schechter: Yeah, this wasn't just a great night for Annie Andrews. This was also a very good night for Democrats in the South Carolina House of Representatives.
They flipped 10 Republican-held seats. It ultimately broke the supermajority that the Republicans held in the lower chamber.
It gives Democrats an opportunity to have more say on legislation, and it will be interesting to see how Republicans work with Democrats.
