Annie Andrews won South Carolina’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, setting up a November matchup with Sen. Lindsey Graham after defeating Brandon Brown and Kyle Freeman, according to CBS News projections. The called the race for Andrews at 8:37 p.m. Tuesday, and CBS News later reported at 8:46 p.m. EDT that she would move on to the general election.
Andrews, a pediatrician who ran against Republican Rep. Nancy Mace in 2022 and lost, now faces a steep climb in a state where Democrats have not won statewide office since 2000. Graham has held the Senate seat since 2003 and defeated Democrat Jaime Harrison by 10 points in 2020, a margin that captures how hard it has been for Democrats to break through in South Carolina even when they have a nominee in place early.
Andrews did not try to downplay the odds. In a March 2026 interview, she said she did not mind being an underdog and described herself as a fighter. On Tuesday night, she tied that case directly to the general election, saying she believes voters in South Carolina are ready for something different and arguing that Graham has spent 23 years in the Senate while abandoning the state.
Brown, who lost the primary, struck a similar note about Graham’s vulnerability, telling WCSC that he did not see the senator as “a powerhouse anything” and that South Carolina needs a candidate who argues every day for the state’s interests and puts South Carolinians first. His comments point to the line Democrats are likely to use through November: not that Graham is easy to beat, but that he can be beatable if the party can turn frustration into turnout.
The immediate question is whether that argument can land in a state that has resisted it for more than two decades. Andrews has her nominee, her opponent and a short runway to make the race more than a familiar partisan test. For now, the contest is defined by the size of the challenge she just accepted.
