Trump Confronts a New Midterm Battleground: South Carolina, Where the Senate Race Has Become a Toss-Up

HOUSTON - Five days before the midterms, the map is embarrassing the Republican Party in a place it is not supposed to: South Carolina. President Donald Trump stages a campaign rally in Rock Hill on Thursday - his second in the state in two weeks and his third trip this cycle - as new polls show the Senate race between incumbent Republican Darline Graham and Democratic challenger Annie Andrews is a toss-up, Reuters reported. A New York Times/Siena poll of 707 South Carolina voters put the two at 48 percent each, and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted the race from likely Republican to lean Republican on October 20. South Carolina has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since Fritz Hollings, first elected in 1966, served until 2005.

The seat itself explains part of the scramble. Graham is running for a full term in the seat once held by her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump's foremost Republican allies, who died suddenly in July; Reuters reported that polls suggest her stumbles on the campaign trail have hurt her standing, and she has answered criticism of an unpolished campaign by saying she is not a career politician and does not 'speak politician.' The endorsements map tells its own story: two former governors - Republican David Beasley and Democrat Jim Hodges - have backed Andrews in a television advertisement, while former Gov. Nikki Haley, who challenged Trump for the White House in 2024, has endorsed neither candidate. Analysts watching the race also note a splinter risk: even a couple of percentage points of write-in votes for Ralph Norman could matter in a race this close.

South Carolina is not an isolated worry. Reuters reported that polls show Democrats leading the Senate races in seven Republican-held states - Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and Maine - as Republicans fight to keep their six-seat majority; analysts favor Democrats to retake the House while calling Senate control too close to call. Mississippi's race, where Democrat Scott Colom has tightened the contest against Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, and Nebraska's, where independent Dan Osborn challenges Sen. Pete Ricketts, have Republican operatives concerned as well. The consequence, campaign officials told Reuters, is arithmetic: defending turf in the South has forced Republicans to divert vital resources from Michigan, Georgia and Minnesota - races they had hoped to contest - and sent Trump on a frenetic tour through 19 states since the start of October, with Florida, Kansas and Iowa still ahead before Tuesday.