The Associated Press called South Carolina's Senate race of 3 November 2026 for Democrat Annie Andrews, who led Darline Graham 51.1% to 46.7% with about 99% counted; BBC News and The Guardian report Graham's defeat.
History. 6 of 8. Where the appointed senator ran in person, as Graham does, the party kept the seat all four times; that smaller count is shown in words only.
Hunch. The BBC reported on 26 August that political experts expect Graham to win, in a state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate for decades.
The winner market resolves on the official South Carolina Election Commission result and the Associated Press count, checked on 4 November 2026: YES if Darline Graham wins the US Senate seat, NO if another candidate wins. If two votes for this seat are held that day, the race for the full six-year term counts; BBC News and The Guardian are the backup.
We looked for cases where a US senator died, the governor appointed someone from the president's party, and the seat then went to the voters in a midterm, in a state that had backed that party for the seat for at least 20 years. We kept only races where the party's candidate had never won an election to public office, as far as the records show. We found eight since 1918, and seven of them were between 1918 and 1938.