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Welcome to Crossroads 2026, our team coverage of multiple statewide races occurring amidst a severe anti-Republican backlash – and rampant intra-party division in the Palmetto State.
Yesterday we reported on the final polls in this election cycle – surveys which feature vastly divergent projected outcomes in the races for governor and U.S. Senate.
In the contest to become the Palmetto State’s next chief executive, four-term attorney general Alan Wilson enters the balloting with a healthy lead over Democrat state representative Jermaine Johnson. The winner will succeed term-limited, status quo governor Henry McMaster.
In the race for U.S. Senate, Democrat physician Annie Andrews is running neck-and-neck with interim U.S. senator Darline Graham Nordone – an unexpectedly close election that appears to be coming down to the wire.
While you track the results above, be sure to keep refreshing this page for the latest updates in our live feed…
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THE LIVE FEED…
1:55 p.m. EST – A great resource for those of you tracking results tonight…
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here’s the site. it will also show SC state house races! https://t.co/GwHqynBhfT
— SC Supreme Court Opinion Bot (@SCSupremeCourt) November 3, 2026
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1:45 p.m. EST – It bears repeating… no Democrat has won a statewide election since 2006, when former superintendent of education Jim Rex narrowly defeated Karen Floyd in the race to lead the Palmetto State’s school system. Rex edged Floyd by 455 votes – the narrowest margin of victory in a statewide election in South Carolina history. He was defeated four years later – and subsequently bolted the Democrat party.
No Democrat has won election to the U.S. senate since the late Fritz Hollings defeated former GOP congressman Bob Inglis to win his final term in the U.S. Senate in 1998. That’s the same year former governor Jim Hodges became the last Democrat to win a gubernatorial election in the Palmetto State.
A lot of history is on the line tonight…
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1:38 p.m. EST – Some shots from last night’s Alan Wilson rally in Cayce, S.C. from our intrepid chief photog and investigative reporter extraordinaire Andrew Fancher…
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1:30 p.m. EST – One of the biggest questions we have heading into today’s voting is what the write-in percentage will be in the U.S. Senate race. We’ve written on the sustained intensity of the #WriteInRalph movement – an effort by conservative grassroots activists to write in the name of congressman Ralph Norman on the ballot.
For a great read on this movement, Alaina Stone of Palmetto State Watch has you covered…
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Darline Graham has had every advantage a Republican nominee could ask for. Trump has rallied for her three times, the SCGOP lined up behind her before the runoff, and Alan Wilson has her riding along on his bus tour. Even so, a growing number of South Carolina conservatives plan to skip her name tomorrow and write in Ralph Norman instead. We sat down with Avery Milton, the Upstate conservative who founded Write In Ralph, to find out why. He told us voters were handed a nominee and that a lot of Republicans are simply done picking the lesser of two evils. “This race has no business being this close,” Milton said. “It’s only because the candidate is just that bad.” Read the full interview here: https://t.co/wMkdjd9g1Z
— Palmetto State Watch (@WatchPalmetto) November 2, 2026
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1:25 p.m. EST – Gubernatorial frontrunner Alan Wilson sat down with us last night to look back at his 2026 candidacy – and forward to his likely election as the Palmetto State’s 118th governor.
Here is Wilson’s conversation with our Will Folks in its entirety…
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1:20 p.m. EST – Some interesting developing news on the black vote in South Carolina. Pollsters have been projecting this percentage of the electorate to register at anywhere from 22-24% this cycle – which is elevated. According to voter file data obtained by national Republicans, though, the black percentage of the early vote was 29% – not 27% as initially believed.
While this percentage is not expected to hold through the closing of polls, it represents a significant impediment to the campaign of Darline Graham Nordone.
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SOUND OFF…
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