Democrats Flip South Carolina Senate Seat in Stunning Upset as Talarico Leads in Texas

Original illustration of a domed capitol building at night with a palmetto tree silhouette, a red lone star and a ballot box, representing election night Senate races in South Carolina and Texas — Original illustration by Daily Content News

South Carolina just did something it hasn’t done in nearly three decades. Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, defeated appointed Republican Sen. Darline Graham on Tuesday night, according to projections from NBC News, CBS News and Decision Desk HQ. The result hands Democrats an unexpected Senate pickup in a state President Donald Trump carried by roughly 18 points in 2024, while a second deep-red state, Texas, was still counting votes with Democrat James Talarico out in front.

A rare Democratic win in the Palmetto State

CBS News reports that South Carolina has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1998, and NBC News notes Andrews will be the state’s first Democratic senator in more than 20 years. Decision Desk HQ projected the race at about 9:54 p.m. ET. With roughly 86% of the expected vote counted, NBC News’ results showed Andrews at about 51% to Graham’s roughly 47%, with independent candidate Whitener at about 1%.

The swing showed up in places Republicans usually count on. On NBC’s election coverage, analyst Steve Kornacki called the result “shocking,” pointing to Spartanburg County, where the margin moved roughly 31 points toward Democrats compared with Trump’s 2024 showing, and Greenville County, where Andrews was ahead by about 9 points after Trump won it by 22, according to Mediaite’s account of the broadcast.

How the seat came open

The race was never supposed to be competitive. The seat belonged to longtime Sen. Lindsey Graham, a five-term Republican who died suddenly of a heart problem earlier this year, NBC News reported. In July, Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Darline Graham, 62, a former commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, to fill the seat, according to CBS News.

Her campaign struggled to gain traction. During a debate, Graham said she was “not that informed on national security,” NBC News reported, and the Cook Political Report shifted the race from Solid Republican to Likely Republican in September. Andrews, 45, campaigned on health care access, affordability and anti-corruption, CBS News reported. NBC News said she raised more than $4 million in the final fundraising period, compared with roughly $90,000 for Graham, even as Republican-aligned groups, including the Senate Leadership Fund and Trump-aligned MAGA Inc., poured money into the race late.

Texas: Talarico leads, but no call yet

Attention now turns to Texas, home to what the Texas Tribune describes as the most expensive Senate race in the country. Democratic state Rep. James Talarico held a sizable lead over Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in early returns, with Talarico near 59% and Paxton near 40% with a little over half of the expected vote counted, based on AP data. As of this writing, the Associated Press had not called the race, and large shares of the vote remained outstanding. Some social media accounts have declared a winner, but those claims are ahead of the major race-calling organizations.

Paxton won the GOP nomination by beating Sen. John Cornyn in a May runoff after Trump endorsed him, the Texas Tribune reported. Democrats have not won a statewide race in Texas since 1994, or a Senate race there since 1988. Turnout was heavy: more than 7.7 million Texans, about 40.5% of registered voters, cast ballots early.

The rest of a busy night

Elsewhere, the AP projected Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms as the winner of Georgia’s governor race, making her the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history, and projected Republican Byron Donalds as Florida’s next governor, the state’s first Black governor. Decision Desk HQ projected Gov. Kathy Hochul’s reelection in New York and Republican Sen. Mike Rounds’ reelection in South Dakota, while NBC News projected Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty would keep his seat in Tennessee.

Why it matters and what’s next

According to the Texas Tribune, Democrats need to flip four Republican-held seats while holding all of their own to win a Senate majority. South Carolina gives them one of those four. CBS News called it “an unexpected pickup” for the party, but control of the chamber remains undecided, and several closely watched races, including Texas, were still being counted late Tuesday.

Watch for official race calls in Texas and other battlegrounds overnight and into Wednesday. Results shown on election night are unofficial until states certify them, and margins can shift as mail and late-counted ballots come in. We’ll keep tracking the Senate picture as the calls come in.