Shifting Sands in South Carolina’s U.S. Senate Race?

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by WILL FOLKS

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Interim U.S. senator Darline Graham Nordone – a left-of-center establishment Republican cut from the same cloth as her late brother, Lindsey Graham – narrowly defeated conservative congressman Ralph Norman last month to become the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in South Carolina.

Since then, Nordone has done little to enhance her electoral prospects… seemingly mistaking the abbreviated fall campaign as a coronation rather than what it actually is, a challenging consolidation of the badly splintered GOP electorate.

In addition to alienating Norman supporters – many of whom plan to write the congressman’s name on their 2026 ballots – Nordone has been completely outflanked on the affordability front by her Democrat opponent, Annie Andrews. Polling in this race is much closer than anyone expected, and Nordone is doing next-to-nothing to appeal to the center of the ideological spectrum – and even less to shore up her battered right flank.

Does that mean Andrews has a path to victory? No… but it does mean the Palmetto political paradigm is shifting as Democrats have belatedly learned to embrace the economic populism that U.S. president Donald Trump so deftly exploited during his rise to power.

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South Carolina hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1998 – and hasn’t elected a Democrat to any statewide office since 2006. While the Palmetto State’s demographics are clearly changing, they haven’t changed fast enough for Andrews.

Nonetheless, national analysts are starting to pay closer attention to the state as a potential pickup for Democrats in the upcoming midterm election – which is shaping up to be a regular rout of Republicans thanks to Trump’s dismal approval ratings.

This week, the Cook Political Report announced it had shifted South Carolina from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican” on its electoral ratings index – signifying enhanced Democrat viability in this ruby red state. Nordone remains a strong favorite to emerge victorious come November, but the needle is not moving in her direction.

“Her negatives are through the roof,” one GOP operative confided to us this week, referencing Nordone’s ongoing inability to win over staunchly conservative voters.

“This race is getting the attention it deserves because South Carolinians are tired of paying record-high diesel prices, watching their health care get gutted, and getting squeezed by higher interest rates,” Andrews said in a statement responding to the rating shift. “All while they have a senator in name only, someone they didn’t choose, taking direction from Washington and the party bosses instead of standing up for them.”

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“This campaign and this Senate seat belong to the people of South Carolina, and I’m going to spend every day between now and Election Day showing up for them, listening to them, and showing them the kind of senator they deserve,” Andrews added.

The Cook Report has three classifications for seats held by representatives or senators from each major political party: “solid,” “likely” and “leaning.” Seats designated as “solid” are most likely to stay in their previous partisan column, while seats listed as “likely” or “leaning” have higher potential to be flipped.

Other states are classified as pure “toss-ups,” meaning neither party is perceive to have an edge.

Nordone’s campaign didn’t seem concerned by the Cook Report’s reclassification of the race.

“This is the same group that had Lindsey Graham’s race in 2020 as a tossup and then he won by 10%,” Nordone’s top strategist Mark Knoop wrote on X. “Take it with a grain of salt.”

The GOP currently holds 53 seats in the U.S. Senate compared to 45 for Democrats. Two independent senators – including socialist Bernie Sanders – caucus with the Democrats. Thirty-three (33) seats in the chamber are up for grabs, with Cook designating seven of them as toss-ups. Two additional seats are “leaners” – one Republican and one Democrat – while four seats are listed as “likely” to remain in the hands of the party currently controlling them, two GOP seats and two Democrat seats.

Keep it tuned to FITSNews as we continue to track the latest developments in this election…

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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