Annie Andrews won South Carolina’s Democratic primary for Senate on Tuesday, giving Democrats a nominee to challenge Sen. Lindsey Graham in November. CBS News projected the pediatrician as the winner on June 9, 2026, even as the Republican primary was still unresolved later that night.
The result moves Andrews from a primary fight she was expected to survive into a general election that is likely to be defined by the same odds she has embraced for months. In March, she said she did not mind being an underdog and added, “I am a fighter.” She also said then that people in South Carolina were ready for something different, a line that now becomes the central pitch of her campaign.
Andrews, who ran against Republican Rep. Nancy Mace two years ago and lost, has tried to frame her return to the ballot as a direct challenge to a senator she says has been in Washington too long. In March, she called Graham “a career, corrupt, cowardly politician,” said he had been the state’s senator for 23 years and argued that voters understand he has abandoned South Carolinians. He has held the seat since 2003, and Democrats have been trying for years to make the state’s marquee federal race competitive.
That is a harder ask in South Carolina than in most places. No Democrat has won statewide office there since 2000, when Graham defeated Democrat Jaime Harrison by 10 points, and an upset against him is not expected. Brown told WCSC that Graham is not a powerhouse, saying, “I don’t see Senator Graham as a powerhouse anything,” and adding that South Carolinians need a candidate who will argue every day for their interests and put the state first.
The unfinished Republican primary is the last obstacle before the fall campaign locks in, and Graham still faced several primary challengers Tuesday night. CBS News had not projected a winner there by late evening, leaving the immediate question not whether Andrews has a Democratic race ahead of her, but which Republican she will face when the state turns to November.
