Why Annie Andrews Is the Right Person for South Carolina at Exactly This Moment
The last Democrat to win a U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina won it in 1998. That is not a typo. Twenty-eight years. Four Lindsey Graham terms. One state, one party, two and a half decades of unbroken Republican control of a seat that was never supposed to be competitive again.
And then Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. And then South Carolina experienced a measles outbreak. And then a pediatrician named Annie Andrews turned on her camera and said: I’ve seen enough.
“The fact that it is 2026 and here I am in South Carolina, where we are in the midst of a measles outbreak because of disinformation and conspiracy theories spread by people like RFK Jr.,” Andrews said. “All of that is going to be made so much worse because of what we’ve seen from this Trump administration — of course, enabled and supported by Lindsey Graham.”
That is what a candidate with something real to say sounds like. Not polling. Not consultant-tested language. Not a committee-approved talking point. A doctor who treats children watching a preventable disease spread through her state because the people enabling the disinformation that caused it are the same people her opponent calls his allies.
South Carolina is still recovering from an unprecedented measles outbreak, infecting almost 1,000 people. While Andrews was on the ground, working around the clock to protect and treat children, Graham remained silent. In December 2025, a total of 72% of voters said they were very concerned about the measles outbreak.
Who She Is
Dr. Annie Andrews is a pediatrician. She works at a children’s hospital. She is a mother of three school-aged children who attend public school in Charleston. She commutes between Charleston and Washington, between her patients and her campaign, between the specific work of medicine and the broader work of trying to fix the systems that make that medicine necessary in the first place.
She said going back and forth between these two worlds — the campaign trail and her job as a doctor — has grounded her candidacy. “I’m taking care of kids who are struggling with food insecurity. Kids who have asthma and live in a home with mold on the walls and can’t afford to move to a different apartment. Kids whose parents can’t afford their prescription drugs. Kids who can’t access mental health resources in their community, and kids who have a past medical history of gunshot wounds, which is really only something you see in America,” she said. “It reminds me of all the reasons I’ve sacrificed so much to run for office.”
That list is a policy agenda. Food insecurity. Environmental health. Prescription drug costs. Mental health access. Gun violence. These are not abstract problems to Dr. Andrews. They are the children in her examination room. They are the diagnoses she writes and the referrals she makes and the families she has to tell, gently, that the treatment they need costs more than they can afford in the richest country on Earth.
Lindsey Graham has been in the Senate for 23 years. In 23 years, he has not solved any of these problems. He has, in fact, voted to make several of them worse. Andrews said she felt voters feel strained under the effects of the Trump administration’s “chaotic” policies. “Lindsey Graham has had 22 years to make things better for folks here in South Carolina, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many voters who could articulate in what way Lindsey has made their life better.”
Why This Race Is Different
The conventional wisdom says South Carolina is unwinnable for Democrats. The conventional wisdom said that about Georgia. It said it about Arizona. The conventional wisdom of permanent Republican dominance has been wrong in state after state when the right candidate ran at the right moment on the right issues.
An Impact Research poll found Dr. Andrews within five points of Senator Graham (47-42), but when voters learn more about her background as a doctor, the gap shrinks to two points between Dr. Annie Andrews and Lindsey Graham (46-44).
Within two points. In South Carolina. Against a four-term incumbent with Trump’s endorsement.
Graham is deeply unpopular, uniquely vulnerable. A Citadel Poll shows only 46% of respondents supporting Graham. Five Republicans jumped into the primary to end Lindsey Graham’s political career, citing growing frustration with the war hawk, saying he’s focusing too much on “international issues.” Instead of focusing on top issues for South Carolina voters, Senator Graham has made supporting the Iran war his top priority, saying he “would give up his job” over the war.
A senator who says he would give up his job to keep a war going, while his constituents struggle with grocery bills, prescription costs, and a measles outbreak he said nothing about. This is the vulnerability Andrews is running directly at.
Andrews also levies criticism at Graham for voting to confirm Trump’s Cabinet picks and for his relationship with Elon Musk, describing “an unelected billionaire taking a chainsaw to Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ healthcare.”
South Carolina has a significant veteran population. It has a significant elderly population on Medicare. It has working families who cannot afford the healthcare system as it currently exists. These are not liberal talking points. These are the material conditions of life in the state Graham has represented for 23 years without making them better.
The Doctor Advantage
Recent research confirms that scientific and medical professions have some of the highest approval ratings and levels of trust among voters — especially on the issue of healthcare. If successful, Dr. Andrews will become the first Democratic doctor in the U.S. Senate.
We are living in a moment when trust is the scarcest commodity in American public life. When people don’t know what to believe, when information has been so thoroughly weaponized that facts feel partisan, when the Secretary of Health and Human Services spent years telling parents not to vaccinate their children — in that moment, a pediatrician who has spent her career telling the truth to frightened parents and treating the consequences of policy failure in the bodies of children is exactly the kind of person the Senate needs.
314 Action Fund endorsed Dr. Andrews early in the cycle and has helped raise over $2.5 million for her campaign. As a pediatrician, Dr. Andrews is one of 314 Action’s Guardians of Public Health, joining the organization’s most ambitious $25 million campaign to elect 100 doctors, nurses, and public health professionals by 2030.
What She’s Asking For
In her launch video, Andrews says it’s “embarrassing” to see how politicians like Graham — at the moment one of President Donald Trump’s top Senate allies — have swung from criticizing Trump to working to gain his favor. “He’s changed his position on nearly every issue over that time and that’s because, in my view, he doesn’t stand for anything or believe in anything other than what it takes to get reelected,” Andrews told the Associated Press.
That diagnosis is correct. We made the case for it in the preceding essay about Graham. The man who called Trump a jackass is now Trump’s north star. The man who championed Ukraine abandoned Ukraine. The man who called himself McCain’s partner stayed silent while Trump mocked McCain’s torture. The man who has been in the Senate for 23 years cannot point to a single concrete improvement in the daily lives of ordinary South Carolinians.
Annie Andrews is asking South Carolina to try something different. A doctor instead of a career politician. Someone whose expertise is the health of children rather than the health of her own career. Someone who was in the middle of a measles outbreak treating kids while her opponent said nothing.
South Carolina hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1998. The streak will end eventually — states change, conditions change, the right candidate in the right moment can move a race that looked unmovable. The question is whether 2026 is that moment.
Given the state of the country, given the record of the man she’s running against, given the two-point polling gap that opens when voters learn who she actually is — it might be.
She’s asking you to help find out.
Donate to Dr. Annie Andrews at annieandrewssc.com