Graham and Andrews Deadlocked at 48-48 in South Carolina - and the Citadel Poll Shows Why Trump Is Spending Thursday in Rock Hill
A new Times/Siena poll ties the Senate race with five days left. But a Citadel survey found Graham's Upstate lead jumping from 6 points to 17 after Trump's Pendleton rally - the movement the president is flying back to repeat.
HOUSTON - South Carolina's Senate race is tied in the number that makes headlines and moving in the number that explains Thursday. A New York Times/Siena poll released October 28 put Sen. Darline Graham and Charleston Democrat Annie Andrews at 48 percent each among 707 voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 points - a deadlock, five days before an election in a state that has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1998 and that President Donald Trump carried with nearly 60 percent of the vote. Both candidates spent Wednesday in Greenville: Andrews, who has visited all 46 counties since announcing in May 2025, told the Greenville News she believes Graham will 'disappear into the Washington swamp' if elected, while Graham told the Fourth District Republican Club, 'This was never in my plans. I never wanted to be a politician. I'm here because of what happened on July 11 when I lost my precious brother unexpectedly.'
Graham's path explains the scramble. Appointed to her brother Lindsey Graham's seat after his death in July, she earned Trump's endorsement, then survived a hard Republican primary against Rep. Ralph Norman by only about five points. A Citadel poll released October 27 suggests the president's personal attention moves exactly the voters she needs: among registered Upstate voters, her lead grew from 6 points before Trump's recent Pendleton rally to 17 points after it. Thursday's rally is in Rock Hill - an area Norman represents and won in the August primary runoff. It is a turnout repair job in the state's most contested Republican geography, run by the one Republican who demonstrably repairs it.
Andrews is not running a protest campaign. She has drawn a cross-party endorsement advertisement from former Govs. Jim Hodges, a Democrat, and David Beasley, the Republican he defeated in 1998, and South Carolina has posted record-setting early voting since polls opened October 19, running through October 31. Graham, for her part, promises presence: 'I'm not going to go up there and forget South Carolina. I want to come back to South Carolina on a regular basis.' A tied poll, a movable Upstate and five days left - that is the whole race, and Thursday afternoon in Rock Hill is where the Republican half of it gets decided.
