Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician and a Democrat, has defeated Senator Darline Graham, the South Carolina Republican appointed to fill her late brother’s seat, according to The Associated Press. The victory, projected earlier by The New York Times, is a stunning upset in a deeply conservative state, improving Democrats’ chances of winning Senate control.
Ms. Graham’s defeat reflected a toxic political environment for the G.O.P. and the limits of President Trump’s appeal, even in a solidly Republican state where he had been popular.
South Carolina had not been expected to be a midterm battleground. The state had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1998, and Mr. Trump won it handily in three presidential elections.
But Senator Lindsey Graham’s death in July upended politics in the state, and Ms. Graham’s selection as his replacement created an opening for Democrats. Both parties spent millions of dollars on the race, and with polls showing remarkably close margins, Mr. Trump traveled to the state three times to try to support Ms. Graham’s campaign.
Given the president’s growing national unpopularity, Dr. Andrews, 45, worked to transform Ms. Graham’s close alliance with him into a liability. She attacked Mr. Trump’s policies for causing costs to rise, blamed Republicans for embracing his agenda and argued that Ms. Graham, who relied on the president’s endorsement to win her primary, would be overly beholden to him.
Though Dr. Andrews herself has never won public office, she also argued that Ms. Graham, who had no political experience before being named a senator, was unqualified and had been improperly anointed as Mr. Graham’s successor.
“Nobody in Washington recruited me to run,” Dr. Andrews told hundreds of supporters gathered in Charleston on Tuesday night. “Nobody handed me a seat in the United States Senate. And nobody wrote me a script. I owe no one in Washington anything.”
The crowd partied for hours in excited anticipation of Dr. Andrews’s victory. They greeted her to shouts of “Annie!” when she finally took the stage. “You have shown the nation what is possible,” she said.
When South Carolina’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster, named a grieving Ms. Graham to the Senate seat, many expected her to be a short-term caretaker. Though she had served as the commissioner of a state agency for blind residents, Ms. Graham had little public profile and had never run for office.
But Mr. Trump, who had been close with Mr. Graham, urged his sister to run as his permanent replacement. He endorsed Ms. Graham in a competitive primary election, then put the weight of his political operation behind getting her elected.
Yet the Republican primary provided an early warning sign for Ms. Graham about the limits of Mr. Trump’s clout. Even in the solidly Republican state, Mr. Trump’s endorsement could not spare her from a runoff election. A stumble on national security during a primary debate raised concerns about her qualifications for office.
After sitting on the sidelines of the midterm elections, Mr. Trump took one of his earliest steps back onto the campaign trail with a rally in August in South Carolina to back Ms. Graham in the runoff. But even after she won the primary, Ms. Graham faced skepticism from the conservative wing of the party.
Dr. Andrews tried to court independent voters unsatisfied with the president and Republicans who were dismayed by Ms. Graham’s ascent. She focused on the economy, highlighting health care in particular.
Ms. Graham and Republicans sought to paint Dr. Andrews as too liberal for South Carolina, pointing in particular to her previous backing of an assault weapons ban; her support for restoring Roe v. Wade, which protected abortion rights; and past support for transgender people.
The last issue became a particular focus. As he tried to drum up conservative support for Ms. Graham, Mr. Trump repeatedly used an anti-transgender slur against Dr. Andrews, who was so besieged by attacks on the issue that she released an ad directly responding to them.
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