Dr. Annie Andrews, the Democrat running for Senate in South Carolina, walked along a dock just off the coast of Charleston as Cindy Tarvin explained how her company’s shrimping season had been crippled by the high cost of diesel.
“We live on hope,” said Ms. Tarvin.
“Same,” said Dr. Andrews.
She might need it. Dr. Andrews, a pediatrician, is running for a seat that no Democratic candidate this century has come within eight points of winning. Even some of her most ardent supporters, in what may prove to be the most favorable midterm for Democrats in years, sense that her bid is a long shot.
Yet there is also some reason for optimism. Dr. Andrews is running against Senator Darline Graham, a political novice facing skeptics within her own party, at a time when the political environment is rapidly deteriorating for Republicans. Democrats are tied or in the lead in Senate races in five reliably Republican states, according to new New York Times/Siena University polls. That puts victories in Kansas, Mississippi and South Carolina within the party’s sight lines, if at their outer reaches.
Dr. Andrews will emerge next month as either a symbol of a massive Democratic comeback, or a cautionary tale of the limits of progressive optimism. Two weeks ago, the Cook Political Report shifted the race from solidly Republican to lean Republican. Only two years ago, Mr. Trump carried South Carolina by more than 17 points.
“I’m very hopeful,” said Daniel Chambers, 72, a retired program director at a hospital who attended a fund-raiser for Dr. Andrews on Tuesday. “But I’m not expecting her to win.”
Voter anger over high prices caused by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran exists in South Carolina, too.
At Tarvin Seafood, a local market in Mt. Pleasant, all of the shrimp trawlers were on the water for the first time in weeks. Diesel had gotten so expensive that the fishermen had adopted a new strategy of waiting to set out until the tide was powerful enough to propel them into the Atlantic Ocean.
“We just always hope that we can weather the storms,” said Ms. Tarvin, who wore a belt with shrimp on it. “But there’s no guarantee.”
There are structural disadvantages for any Democratic campaign here. The state is deeply conservative, and only a sliver of the electorate has been open in recent elections to crossing party lines in this divided era.
Although Dr. Andrews’s campaign has out-raised and outspent Ms. Graham’s, the main super PAC for Democratic Senate candidates has not invested in the race. And Republicans have only just begun airing attack ads against Dr. Andrews. Some Democrats fear a reprise of 2020, when Jaime Harrison, a former state Democratic Party chair, mounted an energetic campaign against Senator Lindsey Graham, Ms. Graham’s brother who died in July, but finished 10 points behind him.
Dr. Andrews has been traversing the state for 18 months, promising to reverse President Trump’s policies that have caused prices to rise, with a particular emphasis on health costs and children’s health care. She has also softened her language on past positions that could alienate South Carolina’s conservative electorate, including transgender policies.
A fast-talking, denim-loving mother of three, she has pitched herself as an anti-Democratic Party Democrat, a pediatrician with a work ethic who loves her job but is willing to set it aside to help her state. If elected, she has vowed to leave the Senate after two terms.
In 2022, she ran for a House seat against Representative Nancy Mace and lost by more than 10 points.
“I feel more optimistic than ever that there’s enough people in South Carolina who are ready for change, who see in me someone who’s actually going to be an independent voice for South Carolina,” Dr. Andrews said in an interview on Thursday, sitting atop a cooler near the dock in Mt. Pleasant, where she lives with her children. In case voters see Ms. Graham as an emblem of change too, Dr. Andrews likes to remind them that she “was really handpicked by Washington.”
Ms. Graham, a longtime advocate for people with disabilities, decided to run for Senate in July, days after Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina appointed her to serve out the remainder of her brother’s term. During a televised debate in the primary election, Ms. Graham acknowledged that she was “not that informed on national security” — a stumble that tapped into voters’ concerns about her eligibility.
She won the bruising primary with a heavy assist from Mr. Trump, but not without scars. Representative Ralph Norman, vice chairman of the hard-line Freedom Caucus who lost to Ms. Graham in a two-person runoff, initially encouraged voters to write in his name before backing down and endorsing Ms. Graham.
Republicans, for their part, said they expected Ms. Graham to need a financial boost to secure a win in the end. Asked if there would be more spending on her behalf, an official close to the White House, speaking anonymously to talk candidly about the race, said that Ms. Graham’s “allies are monitoring the race closely and will make sure she wins.” A second Republican official said there were “conversations about getting more help for Darline.”
President Trump is scheduled to visit the state again later this month, the second official said, granted anonymity to discuss plans not yet made public. John Thune, the Senate majority leader, is also planning to visit the state before Election Day.
As Dr. Andrews has covered the state this fall, Ms. Graham has spent much of her time governing in Washington.
Mark Knoop, Ms. Graham’s campaign manager, stressed that Dr. Andrews has benefited from weeks without opposition on television and “is still losing.”
“Just imagine how those numbers look when voters meet the real Annie Andrews,” he said. “This is South Carolina.”
Ms. Graham’s campaign has introduced a website with a virtual game called “Dr. Annie’s Waiting Room,” highlighting Dr. Andrews’s more progressive stances: her past support for an assault weapons ban; desire to restore Roe v. Wade, which protected abortion rights; and past support for transgender people.
Ms. Graham has called Dr. Andrews “one of the most radical people that has ever been the nominee for a statewide office in South Carolina.”
Dr. Andrews has supported prescribing puberty blockers and hormone treatment for children, but she says she opposes gender-transition surgery for those under 18. She previously argued against a bill that barred transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports but said in an interview on Wednesday that she did not “support biological men playing in women’s sports.”
To win, Dr. Andrews will need to win over some Republicans and motivate the state’s Democratic Party base, which showed up in force amid a redistricting fight this summer. After record turnout in the primary election in June, the South Carolina legislature blocked Mr. Trump’s effort to eliminate the state’s only majority Black district, which has been held by Representative James E. Clyburn since 1993.
Mr. Clyburn, who is known for his ability to turn out the state’s Black voters, said in an interview on Thursday that he would do everything he could to help Dr. Andrews win. He has recorded a radio spot that has aired statewide and said he planned to publish videos, make calls and host events on her behalf.
“I do believe Annie Andrews has a good chance of winning,” Mr. Clyburn said. “I just go by my feeling, and my feelings are not without cause.”
South Carolina is one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, and both campaigns are hopeful that new voters will fall their way. Republicans point to the boom in the Myrtle Beach area as a sign that the G.O.P. base is growing. Democrats point to Hilton Head, which has attracted some left-leaning newcomers in recent years, as a beacon of hope.
“It’s the perfect time for a different type of campaign, a different type of candidate, so we’ll see if she can pull it out,” said Donovan Malloy, an attorney and Democratic operative, over dinner in Columbia. “I still have my doubts because it’s a red state, but it’s a changing state.”
Jim Hodges, the last Democratic governor to win an election in South Carolina, said the political environment reminded him of the year he triumphed, 1998.
“People were very dissatisfied with the incumbent party,” he said. “They wanted candidates who were focused on dinner table issues.”
He praised Dr. Andrews for running a campaign focused on those issues and generating sizable crowds at campaign events.
At a farmers’ market in North Charleston on Thursday, Carolyn Lecque, 81, handed out fliers encouraging people to register to vote. A lifelong Democrat and breast cancer survivor, Ms. Lecque said she was particularly excited about Dr. Andrews because of her focus on health care.
“I think she’ll challenge Robert Kennedy with all this craziness he comes out with, like about vaccines,” said Ms. Lecque, referring to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
If she gets the chance. After more than an hour in North Charleston, a historically Black city, Ms. Lecque had handed out a few fliers but had not registered anyone to vote.
Back on the dock in Mt. Pleasant, Ms. Tarvin, the shrimper, took a minute to ponder the question of whether Dr. Andrews could win. She looked at the candidate, who stayed after the press event to buy shrimp for her kids.
“This is South Carolina,” Ms. Tarvin said. “But I hope so.”
The post As Democrats’ Midterm Dreams Grow, South Carolina Becomes a Test of the Possible appeared first on New York Times.
