South Carolina pediatrician Dr. Annie Andrews, who unsuccessfully ran for the House in 2022 against U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, announced she will challenge longtime Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2026's midterm elections.
The announcement took place on Thursday. In a roughly three-and-a-half minute ad, she highlighted her background as a pediatrician to argue she is best equipped to handle what she described as a anti-science and health crisis occurring under Graham's leadership, and more broadly, the Trump administration.
"Lindsey Graham will take food off of kids' plates... let prices spiral out of control, gut our nation's Medicaid program, which is the largest insurer for children, just so he can cut taxes for billionaires and his donors and special interests," she said in a passage of the video.
Similarly, in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of her campaign rollout, Andrews described the incumbent Republican Senator as ideologically inconsistent, and someone who will do and say anything to be reelected.
"He's changed his position on nearly every issue over that time and that's because, in my view, he doesn't stand for anything or believe in anything other than what it takes to get reelected," said Andrews, who resides in Charleston.
Andrews has two medical licenses in South Carolina and Washington, D.C. The former is set to expire next month, though her team told The Hill she plans on renewing it. She spent 15 years at Medical University of South Carolina, leaving in 2023.
The pediatrician also told The Hill that in Washington, she has a "part time role at Children's National Hospital and a faculty appointment at George Washington [University], and so I spend a few days a month up there taking care of sick and injured children in our nation's capital."
No Democrat has won a U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina in decades, and Republicans in recent history typically take statewide seats by double-digit margins. When Andrews ran against Mace in 2022, she lost to the Republican by 14 percentage points.
South Carolina's 1st District, which spans the state's southern coast, is the only one to have flipped from red to blue in decades, when Joe Cunningham won it for Democrats for a single term in the 2018 election. Mace won it in 2020 and has been reelected twice, although in 2026 she is eyeing a race for governor.
If elected to the Senate, Andrews said one of her legislative priorities would be expanding and making permanent the child tax credit.
"I also want to work towards policies that will help working families, that will lower the cost of groceries, that will lower the cost of childcare, that we rein in the cost of health care, get prescription drug costs down," she told The Hill. "All of these things will benefit Americans, whether they're Republicans or Democrats in every corner of this country."
Ahead of next year's election, Andrews undoubtedly faces an uphill battle. However, she cites Graham's tenure in the Senate and the divisiveness of his policies as a plus for her.
"Lindsey Graham has had 22 years to make things better for folks here in South Carolina, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find many voters who could articulate in what way Lindsey has made their life better," she said.
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