3 minPolitics
Democrat Annie Andrews defeats Senator Darline Graham in South Carolina
Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, won the South Carolina Senate race over Republican incumbent Darline Graham, part of a midterm night in which Democrats sought a net gain of four seats to retake the Senate.
Democrat Annie Andrews defeated Republican Senator Darline Graham in the South Carolina Senate race, flipping a seat that had been held by a Republican. Andrews, a pediatrician, won the contest on Tuesday night, one of the key results of the 2026 midterm elections.
Election data reporting pointed to double-digit swings in several counties as a factor in the outcome. Those shifts helped Andrews overtake Graham and give Democrats a win in a state that had been held by the GOP.
The South Carolina result came as Democrats pursued a broader goal in the Senate. To regain control of the chamber, the party needs a net gain of four seats, and the South Carolina flip was one step toward that target.
The same night brought another high-profile Senate result in Texas. Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton, according to projections from NBC News and Decision Desk HQ. Talarico, 37, became the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Texas since 1988, and the first Democrat to win any statewide office there since 1994.
Paxton had won the Republican nomination by defeating Senator John Cornyn in the May runoff after Trump endorsed him, a margin of nearly 28 points. Cornyn had warned that a Paxton nomination could cost Republicans $150 million to $200 million to hold the seat. Paxton had been impeached by the Texas House in 2023 on bribery and corruption allegations and was later acquitted by the state Senate.
Spending in the Texas race drew wide attention. Elon Musk spent more than $200 million to help elect Paxton, according to a New York Times analysis cited by Fortune, with most of the money flowing through the Senate GOP's main super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund. Talarico made Musk's spending part of his campaign message, saying, « This Senate seat doesn't belong to Elon Musk. » Talarico relied mainly on his own campaign, raising $72 million by early September compared with Paxton's $16.8 million.
Paxton never agreed to debate Talarico, making it the first Texas Senate race since 2000 without a debate between the major-party nominees. Talarico, a state legislator and Presbyterian seminarian, campaigned on affordability and corruption, arguing that Paxton had served wealthy donors while Texans struggled with the cost of groceries, housing and health care.
Early voting in Texas reached 40.5 percent of registered voters, the highest midterm early-turnout rate on record in modern Texas. In partial returns, Talarico was winning Tarrant and Collin counties, which Trump carried by 5 and 11 points in 2024. Trump had won Texas by 13.7 points two years earlier.
Taken together, the South Carolina and Texas results marked the second time on Tuesday night that a Republican whose path to the nomination ran through Trump lost a seat the party had held for decades.
Source: forbes.com
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