A challenger to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has a message for national Democrats, telling Salon that “it’s always worth the fight,” even in the face of long odds — and that Democrats, in the age of social media, need to pay attention when a candidate gains traction without the help of money.
Annie Andrews is a pediatrician and Democratic candidate for Senate in South Carolina, a state Trump carried by nearly 18 points in 2024. Despite this, Andrews said that the party, if it wants to be competitive in the Senate, will need to learn how to compete in states currently dominated by Republicans.
“If we as a party ever want to expand the map, we have to support candidates who enter races where the path to victory is narrow and uphill, like this race in South Carolina. I think one of the things national Democrats need to do is to follow the enthusiasm,” Andrews said. “I think national Democrats could learn from that by observing which candidates in this cycle are breaking through the noise and start to encourage more non-traditional candidates like myself to step up and run and support them when they do.”
Andrews’s message comes at a point when leaders in the party are struggling with their relationship with populist upstarts. Populists on the party’s progressive flank, like Graham Platner, an oyster farmer running for Senate in Maine, and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, the party’s nominee in the New York City mayoral race, and Omar Fateh, a Minnesota state Senator and the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party’s nominee for Minneapolis mayor have all been held at arm’s length by Democratic leaders.
In Maine, party leaders are currently eyeing the state’s 77-year-old governor, Janet Mills, as a Senate recruit, who would face off against Platner in the primary. In New York, Democrats’ top congressional leaders from the state, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer, have so far declined to endorse Mamdani. In Minnesota, the DFL first endorsed Fateh, only to later revoke its endorsement.
In her own campaign, Andrews, a pediatrician, said that she has broken through by talking to voters about Robert Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, and his war on public health.
“RFK Jr. is a vaccine conspiracy — anti-vax, conspiracy theorist — and a grifter who has no business being anywhere near our nation’s health care system or our nation’s public health infrastructure. And not only is he near it, he is leading it,” Andrews said.
Andrews added that she recently had to perform a lumbar puncture, an operation better known as a spinal tap, on a four-year-old, which she said is going to become more common as vaccination rates drop. Before vaccines, children had to undergo extensive testing to determine their risk for developing serious illness when sick, including blood tests, urine tests and spinal fluid tests.
“The fact of the matter is, when we have a rising number of American children who do not receive their routine childhood immunizations, it’s going to change the way we practice pediatrics. Because when a toddler gets a fever and they’re unimmunized or there is an outbreak of a preventable disease in their community — because we have fallen below the herd immunity threshold — more of those toddlers are going to have to get lumbar punctures or spinal taps to evaluate whether or not they have preventable bacterial meningitis,” Andrews said.
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Andrews said that she’s also found purchase with voters discussing kitchen-table issues, like the cost of health care and the price of groceries.
“People are starting to understand that career, corrupt politicians like Lindsey Graham are in office really for one purpose and one purpose only, which is to hold on to power, to grow their power and to enrich themselves, “Andrews said. “I’d like to believe that at the beginning of his career, Lindsey Graham got into politics to help the people who elected him, but that Lindsey Graham does not exist anymore.”
Andrews said that, if elected, she would serve as a “fighter” in the Senate.
“No one wants a politician who sounds like they spend all day in a boardroom with their DC consultants. People are so hungry for real, authentic leaders and fighters,” Andrews said.
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Andrews indicated that she would support legislation that would deliver major changes for working people in the United States, including the PRO Act and potential legislation introducing a public option for health insurance.
When asked whether she would have voted in favor of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s, I-Vt., resolutions blocking the sale of rifles and bombs to Israel, Andrews said that “we must act in accordance with international law, and the Netanyahu regime is not acting within the bounds of international law right now, and I think as a country, we must do everything we can to expedite the path to peace in the region.”
Between launching her run for office in May and the latest campaign finance filings available, from the end of June, Andrews raised $1.2 million. Graham has raised $2.6 million so far.
