Annie Andrews defeats Darline Graham in South Carolina; DDHQ projects Talarico in Texas

Democrat Annie Andrews, a Mount Pleasant pediatrician, has defeated Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina, according to projections from Decision Desk HQ (9:54 p.m. ET), CBS News (page updated 10:01 p.m. ET), and CNN and NBC News, which The Post and Courier reported called the race at 10 p.m. The Associated Press has also projected Andrews the winner, according to Fox Carolina. Twenty minutes later, Decision Desk HQ projected that Democrat James Talarico had beaten Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the Senate seat held by John Cornyn$. As of 10:30 p.m. ET, the AP had not called Texas.

Both states voted for Donald Trump by double digits in 2024: South Carolina by about 18 points, per CBS News, and Texas by nearly 14 points, per the results summarized on Wikipedia. Andrews will be the first Democrat to win a South Carolina Senate race since Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings won his last term in 1998, the Post and Courier reports. No Democrat has won a Texas Senate seat since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, according to the Texas Tribune.

The two results follow earlier Democratic Senate calls tonight in North Carolina, New Hampshire and Georgia.

The South Carolina count so far

When NBC News made its projection, about 86 percent of the expected vote had been counted, GV Wire reported, citing NBC's tally. The Post and Courier put the margin at about 75,000 votes with nearly 90 percent of precincts in, and said Andrews led Graham "even in traditional Republican strongholds, including Greenville County."

Source: NBC News tally as reported by GV Wire, Nov. 3, 2026. Counts will change as remaining precincts and absentee ballots are added. The State Election Commission's results page requires JavaScript and could not be read directly for this story.

Turnout was heavy. As of 6 p.m., 56 percent of registered voters had cast ballots, state election officials told WMBF News. Before Election Day, nearly 950,000 early votes had been cast, a midterm record, Al Jazeera reported, citing the commission.

How the seat came open

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who had served since 2003 and won his June 9 Republican primary with 56.8 percent, died on July 11 from an aortic tear, according to PBS NewsHour. On July 13, Gov. Henry McMaster appointed his younger sister, Darline Graham, then commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, to serve the rest of the term. "It is my honor to ask his little sister, Darline, to finish his work," McMaster said in the governor's announcement. Graham, 62, said in the same release: "I promise to work hard every day over the next several months to support the president and carry forward the efforts of my brother."

Trump urged her to seek a full term, posting "RUN, DARLINE, RUN!" on Truth Social, Fortune reported. In the Aug. 11 special Republican primary, she took 32.8 percent (109,881 votes) against Rep. Ralph Norman's 24.6 percent, Rep. Russell Fry's 19.7 percent and former Gov. Mark Sanford's 14.9 percent, according to State Election Commission figures compiled on Wikipedia. She won the Aug. 25 runoff over Norman 52.4 percent to 47.6 percent (193,486 to 175,412).$$

Andrews, 45, had already won the June 9 Democratic primary with 61.5 percent, per results cited on Wikipedia, as a challenger to Lindsey Graham. A professor of pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina, she lost a 2022 House race to Rep. Nancy Mace$, 56.5 percent to 42.5 percent, according to her Wikipedia biography. She ran this year on health care access, prices and what she called corruption in Washington, CBS News reported.

The campaign's turning points

The moment Andrews cited most often came in an Aug. 18 primary debate. Asked whether Taiwan and the South China Sea are national security issues for the United States, Graham said, "I'm just going to be honest here," and then: "I'm not that informed on national security, so — but I do support the military," CBS News reported. Afterward she told reporters, "They're worried about their pocketbooks more than they're worried about the South China Sea, quite honestly," according to PBS NewsHour.

On Oct. 5, Trump endorsed Graham on Truth Social in a post that referred to Andrews with an anti-transgender slur, WIS reported. Andrews called the post "not presidential" at a Columbia event the next day. "If name-calling would help lower gas prices and grocery prices, he can call me all the names he wants," she said. "But I don't think that's going to get the job done."

Trump then campaigned for Graham in person: at Clemson University's T. Ed Garrison Arena in Pendleton on Oct. 21 and at the Rock Hill Sports and Event Center on Oct. 29, the Post and Courier reported. In Pendleton he called Andrews "a mutilizer," adding, "You know what a mutilizer is? That's a person that doesn't do good things," per the Post and Courier. In Rock Hill he told the crowd to "Pretend that I'm on the ballot," and acknowledged that "if you're president, Republican or Democrat... you don't win the midterms."

Graham's own Rock Hill remarks drew wide coverage. She said liberal activists trying to turn the state blue could "just kiss my ass!" and called Andrews "just plain, bat(expletive) crazy," the Post and Courier reported. Andrews replied on social media: "Is it bat (expletive) to want cheaper gas and groceries?" At a Rock Hill city hall stop the same day she said, "I am here because I care," and "not because someone in Washington, D.C., handed me a Senate seat."

Republican dissent

Norman never fully reconciled with the nominee. On a Midlands radio show on Oct. 21 he said, "This race shouldn't even be close," and "it wouldn't be if I was in the race," the Post and Courier reported. He told The Wall Street Journal, "You have to earn the vote. She hasn't done that," per Al Jazeera, which also described a "Write-In Ralph" effort organized by Upstate Republicans. Asked by Slate about Graham's struggles tonight, Norman replied by text: "Not surprised AT ALL!" Slate reported.

Sanford told The Daily Beast that voters "don't like the idea of a puppet, somebody who will do as told by the president." Former Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, and former Gov. Jim Hodges, a Democrat, both endorsed Andrews in late October, Salon reported. Graham's aide Kevin Bishop told the Post and Courier before the Rock Hill rally that internal polling "looked the same as public polling in 2020," when Lindsey Graham won by 10 points after polls showed a close race.

Money

Graham started from scratch in July. In the final pre-election report, Andrews raised more than $4 million, mostly online, and spent more than $4.6 million in two weeks, while Graham raised about $90,000 and spent $65,000, NBC News reported. Fortune put Andrews' total at $10.8 million, 60 percent from small donors.

Outside groups filled the gap for Graham. MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned super PAC, put in $827,000 in August and the Senate Leadership Fund pledged $5 million in October, CBS News reported; NBC News put the Senate Leadership Fund's total at $13 million. American Mission, the Republican arm of the AI-industry "Leading the Future" network, spent about $2.7 million for Graham, per Fortune. On the Democratic side, Senate Majority PAC booked a $750,000 digital buy for the final weekend. Advertisers in the race spent a combined $12.1 million from Oct. 20 to 26 alone, the Post and Courier reported, citing AdImpact. 567politics' funding records for Darline Graham and Ken Paxton hold no verified FEC snapshot yet; the figures above are as reported by the named outlets, not independently checked against FEC filings.

What the polls said

Final public polls split, with most inside the margin of error. None showed Andrews ahead by the four points she now leads.

LV = likely voters; RV = registered voters. The Citadel reported only a four-point Graham lead statewide, not candidate shares. Sponsors beyond the pollsters themselves were not stated in the releases we opened. The Trafalgar figures come from a 270toWin listing we could not open at the source.

0%

20%

40%

60%

2002 (Sanders)44.2%

2008 (Conley)42.3%

2014 (Hutto)38.8%

2020 (Harrison)44.2%

2026 (Andrews, partial)51%

2002 (Sanders)2008 (Conley)2014 (Hutto)2020 (Harrison)2026 (Andrews, partial)

Source: SC State Election Commission results via Wikipedia, 2002, 2008, 2014, 2020, GV Wire 2026 partial

Show the numbers

Election	Democratic share
2002 (Sanders)	44.2%
2008 (Conley)	42.3%
2014 (Hutto)	38.8%
2020 (Harrison)	44.2%
2026 (Andrews, partial)	51%

Jaime Harrison's 2020 campaign spent more than $132 million and lost by 10 points, per FEC figures cited on Wikipedia. This year's national environment differed: final national polls gave Democrats a 6- to 10-point lead on the congressional ballot, and early exit polls put Trump's approval at 38 percent.

Texas: Decision Desk HQ projects Talarico; AP has not called it

Decision Desk HQ projected at 10:14 p.m. ET that Talarico, a state representative from Austin and Presbyterian seminarian, had won. Its results page, last updated 9:40 p.m. ET, showed Talarico at 3,598,133 votes (56.4 percent) to Paxton's 2,678,403 (42.0 percent), with Libertarian Ted Brown at 1.6 percent and about 64 percent of the expected vote counted. The Texas Tribune, whose results come from the AP, reported that the AP had not called the race while Election Day ballots were still being counted. Early-voting totals and Democratic-leaning urban counties tend to report first in Texas, so the margin may narrow.

Source: Decision Desk HQ, Nov. 3, 9:40 p.m. ET.

Paxton, the three-term attorney general, was impeached by the Republican-led Texas House in 2023 and acquitted by the state Senate, the Texas Tribune reported. He beat Cornyn in the May 26 runoff, 63.8 percent to 36.2 percent, after Trump endorsed him a week before the vote, per results cited on Wikipedia. On Oct. 15 Trump wrote on Truth Social: "If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career," the Tribune reported.

The race was the most expensive Senate contest in U.S. history, according to the Tribune, which reported that Elon Musk spent more than $200 million for Paxton and national Republican groups more than $281 million on advertising. The AP reported that Musk gave $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which passed the same amount to Texas PAC, plus $10 million to Lone Star Liberty PAC. More than 7.7 million Texans voted early, 40.5 percent of registered voters, a modern midterm record, the Tribune said. 567politics covered the closing arguments and the early-vote surge last week.

Final Texas polls mostly had Talarico ahead by two to seven points, Newsweek's roundup shows: NYT/Siena (Oct. 27–Nov. 1, 1,215 LV) 50–43; Emerson (Oct. 31–Nov. 1, 500 LV) 50–48; Trafalgar (Oct. 31–Nov. 1) 48–48; and Quantus Insights (Oct. 26–28, 1,221 LV) Paxton 48.7–47.6, the only late poll with Paxton ahead. A CNN/SSRS poll of 923 likely voters had Talarico up 49–43. If the current margin holds, the result would exceed every public poll.

Online reactions: what we could and could not verify

Representative polling tells us what South Carolinians and Texans thought before the vote; the posts below show only what individual accounts said. We searched X and Bluesky on the evening of Nov. 3 for posts by politicians, strategists, state-based users and ordinary users about both races. Our verification tool could not retrieve any X post tonight, so no X post is quoted or embedded here, including posts attributed by other outlets to Nikki Haley and Sen. Ted Cruz$. Reddit was not available to us for this story. Bluesky posts were retrievable, but that platform skews toward critics of the administration, so supporters of Graham and Paxton are underrepresented below. Location was taken from credible self-description only; where it is unknown we say so.

Decision Desk HQ, a results and race-call service, posted at 9:57 p.m. ET: "Decision Desk HQ projects Annie Andrews wins the SC US Senate General Election #DecisionMade: 9:54 PM EST."

Molly White, a writer and researcher who tracks AI-industry political spending, wrote on Nov. 3: "In South Carolina, the AI industry is making its biggest general-election bet: about $5M behind Republican Darline Graham. $2.5M came from Building the Future, a Leading the Future arm that appeared in October and hasn't spent on any other federal race. Her opponent calls her 'Data Center Darline.'" Her figures are her own; Fortune's $2.7 million figure covers only American Mission.

Republicans Against Trumpism, an advocacy account, quoted a New York Times interview on Oct. 31 in which Graham was asked whether she was angry at her brother "for putting you in this situation": "When I get to heaven one day," she said, "I am just going to choke Lindsey." We did not open the Times article and treat the quotation as the account's.

An ordinary user posting as "Hoodlum," location not stated, wrote the same day that Graham "blames her dead brother for putting her in the position of having to run," adding, "Look elsewhere Darline."

Replies from Paxton supporters to the Decision Desk HQ call on X were compiled by Twitchy; we could not verify them directly and do not quote them.

What remains unknown

Neither Andrews' victory remarks nor any concession from Graham had been published by 10:30 p.m. ET; Andrews' supporters had gathered at a Charleston Marriott ballroom, the Post and Courier reported. We found no statement on the result from the South Carolina Republican Party or the state Democratic Party on their websites. Final county-level results, including the Greenville County margin, await the State Election Commission's canvass. In Texas, the AP had not joined Decision Desk HQ's projection, and no statement from Paxton or Talarico was available. Whether the DDHQ projection holds as Election Day ballots from Republican-leaning counties are added is the main open question; 567politics will update this story as counts and statements arrive.

Differing perspectives

What explains the Democratic win in South Carolina's Senate race?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• A flawed appointment and nominee

  Who holds it: Rep. Ralph Norman, former Gov. Mark Sanford, the 'Write-In Ralph' organizers and other Upstate Republicans

  These Republicans argue the seat was lost in July, when the governor and the president installed a political newcomer on the strength of her last name. They point to Graham's debate admission that she was not that informed on national security, to her trailing the Republican nominee for governor by about 10 points, and to what Norman called a campaign built on propping up a candidate rather than earning votes. Norman said the race should not even have been close and would not have been had he been the nominee; Sanford said voters did not like the idea of a puppet. On this view the state remains Republican and the loss is specific to this nominee.

  In their words: Al Jazeera (quoting Norman and write-in organizers) ↗

• A midterm penalty, not a realignment

  Who holds it: President Trump, Graham campaign aides and allied Republican strategists

  Trump told the Rock Hill rally that presidents of either party tend to lose midterms and asked voters to pretend he was on the ballot. Graham's aide Kevin Bishop said internal polling looked the same as the public polling in 2020, when Lindsey Graham trailed in surveys and won by 10 points. Supporters argue Graham had only months to build a campaign after a sudden death, faced a record-spending opponent and a national Democratic wave, and that the president's visits and party money kept the race within four points in a bad year. They expect the seat to be competitive again for Republicans in 2032 and see no durable shift in the state.

  In their words: The Post and Courier (Trump and Graham campaign remarks, Rock Hill, Oct. 29, 2026) ↗

• A verdict on prices and the president

  Who holds it: Annie Andrews and her campaign, South Carolina Democrats and national Democratic leaders

  Andrews' camp argues voters judged Washington on gas, grocery and health care costs and on who would stand up to it. Andrews answered Trump's attacks by saying that if name-calling would help lower gas prices and grocery prices he could call her any name he liked, but that it would not get the job done, and she told Rock Hill voters she was there because she cared, not because someone in Washington handed her a seat. In this reading the result is part of the same national swing seen in North Carolina, New Hampshire and Georgia, driven by an unpopular administration and an economic message, not by one candidate's stumbles.

  In their words: WIS News 10 (Andrews' remarks in Columbia, Oct. 6, 2026) ↗

• Independents and crossover Republicans wanted an independent voice

  Who holds it: Former Govs. David Beasley (R) and Jim Hodges (D), independent voters and self-described 'politically homeless' Republicans

  This group argues the decisive voters were independents, who the NYT/Siena poll found favored Andrews by about 20 points, and Republicans who, as Aiken Republican Club co-founder Scott Singer put it, were holding their nose. They say Andrews earned those votes by presenting herself as a pragmatic problem solver willing to work with anyone, including the president, by keeping national Democrats at a distance, and by promising voters could fire her in six years if costs and health care did not improve. Beasley said she was the only candidate focused on making things better. In their view neither party's label decided the race; the candidates' independence did.

  In their words: Mother Jones (quoting Republican voters Scott Singer and George Culpepper Jr.) ↗