News 286K views since yesterday

Kornacki locates Andrews' South Carolina breakthrough in Republican strongholds

NBC News' analysis traces Darline Graham's primary weaknesses into a general election in which Democrat Annie Andrews flipped Greenville County.

Channel:

NBC News Story of November 9, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? One of NBC News's most watched videos since yesterday, with 286,469 views.

How Annie Andrews won in South Carolina

Greenville County went Democratic. Nearby Spartanburg stayed Republican, but by a much smaller margin than Donald Trump had secured there. For NBC News' Steve Kornacki, those two results help explain Annie Andrews' projected Senate victory in South Carolina.

"A lot of it, I think, has to do with the national tide," Kornacki says. But his map-based analysis also identifies a vulnerability specific to Republican Darline Graham in the state's evangelical-heavy northwest.

According to NBC's report, Graham was appointed to the Senate after her brother Lindsey Graham died over the summer and was recruited by Trump. Kornacki shows how her primary opponent, Ralph Norman, swept Greenville and Spartanburg counties. He says Lindsey Graham had historically struggled with Republican primary voters in the same region, and Darline Graham nearly lost her nomination because of that weakness.

The general election map shows the problem extending beyond the primary. Andrews won Greenville by two points, Kornacki reports. In Spartanburg, Graham's margin was less than five points, compared with Trump's better-than-two-to-one victory there in 2024.

Andrews, a pediatrician, becomes the first woman elected to the Senate from South Carolina and the first Democrat to win a Senate election there since 1998. NBC projects her victory; Kornacki's explanation is that a favorable national environment met unusually weak Republican results in counties where the party ordinarily relies on substantial margins.

Published on Trari