Are Democrats Missing Out in South Carolina?

Dr. Annie Andrews (D-SC)

It is odd, in many respects, that the 2020 election scarred Democrats in the way that it did given they literally won a trifecta that year.  But if you look at the Senate races that year, you understand that there is a lot of residual scarring.  Every cycle has a few elections where you lose, but it is close.  In 2020, the Democrats got relatively close in North Carolina, Iowa, and (once you factor in the RCV aspect) Maine; these races weren't wins, but they deserved the money that was showered upon them by small dollar donors.

But it's other races that cycle that got WAY too much attention and in the process became absolute sucks on the bank accounts of Democrats hoping to capitalize on what appeared to be a blue wave.  In the Montana Senate race, Democrats spent $82 million on behalf of former Governor Steve Bullock, only to lose by 10-points.  In Kentucky, Amy McGrath raised $96M in total, and yet got clobbered by Mitch McConnell (the phrase "no more McGraths!" has become a slogan for smart fundraising as a result of this race).  And then in South Carolina, Democrat Jaime Harrison raised $132M, more than George W. Bush raised for the entire 2000 presidential campaign...and still lose by 10-points.  Polling had born out that at least Harrison & Bullock were in competitive races, but Democrats felt smarted by it, and as you can see in 2026, where the Democrats are outpolling Republicans but being dwarfed in fundraising, it feels like the ghosts of these races are keeping them from getting money in reach seats because Democrats felt they were cheated out of their cash that cycle.

I bring up Harrison specifically, because if there's a race that feels like a "is this real?" with polling right now, it's South Carolina.  The contest, which pits Sen. Darline Graham (R), the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham who was appointed to his seat after his death, against Dr. Annie Andrews (D), a pediatrician who ran against Nancy Mace in the swing-y first district in 2022, but lost in a landslide.  In normal scenarios, this would be a good race to ignore.  Trump dominated here in 2024, winning the state by 18-points, and no Democrat has won a Senate race in the Palmetto State this century.

But polling does show a competitive race here.  The average polling from all major polling aggregate sites puts Graham up by about 1.6% right now.  For comparison sake, Mary Peltola, Sherrod Brown, and Abdul El-Sayed, all in "tossup" races lead by less than this, and Andrews' deficit would put her roughly in the same camp as Josh Turek, Dan Osborn, Adam Hamilton, & Troy Jackson, all of whom are getting much more attention & money from national Democrats.  It's worth noting that the Senate Leadership Fund (the main super PAC of Senate Republicans) is sending $5 million to bolster Graham, and both President Trump & Sen. John Thune are expected to campaign alongside Graham in the coming weeks.

Yet if you talk to most people about the race, they ignore it, as do most major Democratic fundraising arms.  As I said-South Carolina doesn't come close to the attention that Kansas, Iowa, or Maine are getting, and major prediction outlets like the Cook Political Report, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, and the Silver Bulletin all have it at "Likely R," a designation none of the other seats I listed have right now.  It'd be easy to say that it's just that South Carolina is too red, and we're just looking at fundamentals, but Trump won Kansas by a roughly similar number, and everyone is all in there.  Chuck Schumer has spent money on, Mississippi, despite it being a much more obvious longshot based on polling.

Which makes me think that Democrats are looking at Harrison's numbers six years ago, and assuming the state is simply "unwinnable" and Andrews' polling strength is a mirage...which honestly feels dangerous to me.  I don't know if Annie Andrews will win (I won't be predicting her in a few weeks), but I do think there's evidence this race is competitive, and worth the investment.  Waves oftentimes have races that pretty much no one saw coming as competitive and then they end up nearly flipping.  For example in 2014, Republicans were inches away from ousting Mark Warner in a race that Warner outraised the Republican by more than 2:1, and most sites had listed as "Likely D."  Had the Republicans bothered to invest in that race at all, they would've been able to end the Affordable Care Act.  These sorts of races don't always matter in terms of immediate majority math, but they're almost always consequential.  I am truly hoping that when election night rolls around, we are not staring at a clearly winnable race here that we ended up foregoing because Jaime Harrison's loss six years ago was so horrendous that we stopped believing in victory.