Democrat Annie Andrews is running for a U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina, attempting to challenge four-term Republican incumbent Senator Lindsey Graham in November 2026. She spoke with Newsweek, saying she entered the race because Graham is as “corrupt as ever.”
Who Is Annie Andrews?
Andrews, a mother of three, has spent her entire career working in hospitals—including 15 years at the children’s hospital in the low country of South Carolina.
She said she never originally planned to pivot into politics. But the day-to-day personal experiences she sees in her line of work encouraged her to do more.
“What I see every day at the children’s hospital is the effects of broken policies coming out of Washington, D.C.” Andrews said. “I realize that they’re harming kids and families long before they ever got to me at the hospital.”
Andrews alluded to children who are hungry and unaware of where their next meal will come from; kids who are in the throes of mental-health crises but can’t access proper resources; those who are being diagnosed with new chronic diseases and their parents don’t know if they can afford prescription drugs; and children who have been shot.
“Once I understood that the system was failing our kids, I started to look upstream and I realized that it’s because corrupt career politicians like Lindsey Graham are more than willing to sell our kids out if it means they can hold on to power,” Andrews said.
Learning From Losing
This is not her first foray in politics.
Andrews ran for Congress in 2022 and faced off against South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace. Andrews lost by 14 percentage points.
But she “learned a lot,” she said, and felt that her voice stemming from a long medical background is influential in a time when some lawmakers are proposing “gutting Medicaid,” the largest insurer for children, cutting Medicare, or slashing funds for the National Institutes of Health.
“Folks like me need to step up and fight back because what’s happening is going to take decades for us to recover from,” Andrews said. “But I learned that it’s important to run, no matter how steep the odds are. It’s important to run and to fight for what you believe in and to give voters a choice, and to let voters see that someone is willing to fight for them and deliver results that will actually help your constituents.”
Going Toe-To-Toe With Lindsey Graham
Keeping Graham’s seat is vital for the GOP as 33 of 100 Senate seats are being contested on November 3, 2026. Of those, 20 are currently held by Republicans.
Andrews said Graham does his bidding in Washington and “doesn’t even bother to hold town halls in South Carolina because he’s only there to please Trump and to please billionaires and his corporate donors and special interest groups.”
“Graham has been in the Senate for 22 years, which is exactly half of my lifetime,” she said. “And over that time period, he has changed his position on nearly every issue because he doesn’t stand for anything other than what will allow him to keep power.”
Andrews cited a Winthrop University poll of general population South Carolinians conducted in late May shows Graham’s approval ratings trailing Republican figures such as Trump (45 percent), South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (42 percent) and Senator Tim Scott (41 percent). Graham’s rating is 34 percent.
About 40 percent of respondents disapprove with how Graham is handing his duties, compared to 34 percent who approve and 25 percent who said they weren’t sure.
Abby Zilch, press secretary for Graham’s campaign, told Newsweek on Thursday that the poll carries little if any weight.
“The more effective you are in helping enact President Trump’s agenda, the more Democrats want to take you down,” Zilch said. “While Dr. Andrews pushes a radical liberal agenda that is out of touch with South Carolina, Senator Graham has always stood firm for conservative values—cutting taxes, securing the border, protecting the right to life, defending the 2nd Amendment, and confirming conservative judges to protect our freedoms.”
Andrews, however, said the poll numbers iterate how the Palmetto State really feels about the 69-year-old Graham, who was first elected in 2003 and won his last Senate race in 2020 by 10 points against Democrat Jaime Harrison.
“He’s more unpopular than ever because he’s more corrupt than ever,” Andrews said. “The 2026 election cycle is going to be very different from 2020 for a lot of reasons.”
For one, she said that it is not a presidential election year and that Graham “doesn’t have Donald Trump on the ballot to save him.”
Andrews said that the COVID-19 pandemic also impacted campaigning, preventing traditional door knocking operations and the like. The lack of a field operation won’t be a barrier.
“People are really feeling the negative impacts of the chaos and corruption coming out of D.C. that Lindsey Graham has enabled every single step of the way in a way that they haven’t before,” Andrews said.
“I live in the low country right near the South Carolina ports. Whether it’s the ports and Trump’s chaotic tariffs harming the ports, South Carolina small-business owners, South Carolina farmers, South Carolina’s auto industry—it is affecting people in ways that it never has.”
Turning a Red State Blue
Asked about the political makeup of her state and the challenges that come from voter demographics that have routinely voted for Republicans over Democrats in most recent election cycles, Andrews said she doesn’t look at voters as being “red or blue.”
She added that she intends to talk to voters statewide and tell her story, about being a doctor and explaining many of the horrors she routinely sees on the job. As Andrews listens to concerned children and parents and provides solutions, she wants to relay a similar message in the political arena for a litany of issues.
“I think you have to show up where they are,” Andrews said. “You have to go to their communities and sit down and talk face-to-face with voters. It’s very different from being on social-media platforms where people say horrific things to me and others every day.
“When you’re face-to-face with someone, you realize you have a shared humanity and conversations evolve and folks are open minded.”
Liberal Ideology
Andrews says she has never taken a political-science class, nor does she view herself as a “moderate” or “progressive” Democrat. Labels aren’t her thing.
She doesn’t view herself as political just because she is trying to be a lawmaker, saying that the goal is to help people and make their lives better than they are now.
“I identify as a Democrat because they’re the ones who are fighting for their kids, for our kids,” Andrews said. “They’re the ones who are fighting to pass an expanded permanent child tax credit. They’re the ones who are trying to preserve and protect Medicaid. They’re the ones who want to pass common-sense gun laws so that gun violence is no longer the leading cause of death for children in this country. They’re the ones who want child care to be more affordable, prescription drugs to be more affordable.
“I identify as a Democrat because I see them every day, fighting for kids and families,” Andrews said.
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