One of the most reliably Republican Senate seats in America is now officially a toss-up. Fox News Power Rankings moved South Carolina's Senate race from Lean Republican to toss-up on Thursday, October 29, 2026, five days before the November 3 midterm elections, after a New York Times/Siena poll tied appointed Republican Senator Darline Graham and Democratic challenger Annie Andrews at 48% each among likely voters.
The shift is the latest sign that Democrats are gaining ground in the South, and it puts President Donald Trump in the unusual position of spending the final week of the campaign defending a state he won by nearly 18 percentage points in 2024. Trump was due in Rock Hill on Thursday afternoon, at 12:30 p.m. ET, to rally for Graham at the Rock Hill Sports and Event Center, his second trip to South Carolina in two weeks.
Fox News updated its Power Rankings on Thursday morning with a short, blunt note. "We're updating this forecast to move South Carolina from Lean R to Toss-up," the forecaster wrote. "As this week's Power Rankings reported, Republicans already viewed this as an uncomfortably close race. That belief is now widely shared."
The update cited the new polling directly: "New polling has Democratic challenger Annie Andrews and Graham tied at 48%-48%." The Times/Siena survey, conducted October 19-26 among 707 likely voters in South Carolina, was the first high-quality public poll of the race in some time, and its result landed like a shock in a state that has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1998.
The reaction from Fox's own airwaves underlined the significance. Ryan Schmelz, an anchor on Fox's sister network LiveNOW from Fox, said on Thursday: "So this is not good news, not good developments for Republicans here, as ... South Carolina has traditionally been a stronghold for the GOP." The forecast also moved Ohio's Senate race in the other direction for Republicans, from toss-up to Lean Democrat, after former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown led appointed Republican Senator Jon Husted 52% to 47% in a Fox News poll last week.
Trump himself signalled the stakes on Thursday morning, posting on social media: "Big Rally in South Carolina for the wonderful Darline Graham, today. She is fantastic. Lindsey is watching, and very proud of her!!!" The reference was to Graham's late brother, longtime Senator Lindsey Graham, whose sudden death in July led Republican Governor Henry McMaster to appoint Darline Graham to the seat.
South Carolina's Senate race was never supposed to be close. The state voted for Trump by nearly 18 points in 2024, and it has not elected a Democrat to the upper chamber since Fritz Hollings, first elected in 1966, left office in 2005. Graham, a disability advocate, won the Republican nomination in August after defeating Representative Ralph Norman by about five percentage points in a runoff, despite having never held elected office before her appointment.
Andrews, a pediatrician who previously ran unsuccessfully for Congress, has built her campaign around a simple pitch, delivered in Fort Mill this week: "Let's try something new for once. If she doesn't do what she says she's going to do, you can fire me in six years. I promise that I won't let you down, that I'm going to win you all over."
The polling story has been one of steady tightening. A Trafalgar Group survey in September found Graham leading 43.4% to 42.3%. An InsiderAdvantage poll on September 10 put her ahead by two points, 45.1% to 43.2%. An Impact Research survey in mid-August had the two tied at 41%. The Times/Siena result, 48% each, confirmed the trend rather than starting it, and RealClearPolling's average on Thursday still gave Graham a slim 2.4-point edge, a reminder that a tie in one poll is not the same as a lead.
Money tells its own story about how seriously both parties now take the race. According to Federal Election Commission filings as of October 14, Graham had raised just $1.2 million, while Andrews had raised $23.8 million. Republicans have moved to close the gap: the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate Republicans' main campaign arm, spent $5 million on South Carolina in early October, its first spending on Graham's campaign, and AdImpact data cited by The Hill put total Republican spending to support Graham above $20 million in recent weeks.
One wild card is Norman himself. The Citadel, the state's military college, said in its poll that up to 2% of voters may write in Norman, who lost the nomination runoff to Graham. Norman said in a radio interview that he will vote for Graham because he made a promise, but that his family will not. In a race tied at 48%, even a small write-in vote could matter.
The South Carolina Senate race toss-up matters far beyond one seat because of what it does to the national arithmetic. Fox's updated forecast gives Democrats 48 seats and Republicans 46, with six races rated toss-ups. Neither party reaches the 51 needed for a majority outright, and Republicans would keep control at 50 only because Vice President JD Vance breaks ties.
Fox's forecaster, Remy Numa, spelled out the two ceilings: "On a good night for the Democrats, their ceiling rises to 54 seats. A good night for the Republicans could see them retain control with up to 52 seats." In other words, South Carolina alone does not decide the Senate, but it is now part of the small set of races that could.
The broader map explains why. Forecasters are already suggesting Democrats could win Senate seats by wide margins in North Carolina and Georgia, that Democrat James Talarico could squeak past Republican Ken Paxton in Texas, and that the margin is narrowing in Mississippi, where Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith faces Democrat Scott Colom. USA TODAY noted that a Democratic victory in South Carolina "would represent enormous Democratic power in the South unseen since President Bill Clinton."
There is also a tension in the data that Fox's own analysis acknowledged: two electorates seem to exist at once. One is frustrated with Trump and ready to reject Republicans, including growing numbers of independent, rural and Hispanic voters who say they will vote Democrat, which is what the latest House polling shows, including a survey last week with Democrats up 11 points on the generic ballot. The other is wavering on Republicans but will not necessarily hand Democrats the Senate, preferring the Democrat or Republican in their state by a point or two at most. The House and Senate maps are so different this year that both can be true at the same time.
Kevin Bishop, a former spokesman for Lindsey Graham, pushed back on Thursday against suggestions that the close race was a mirage. "Some are suggesting this is some 'polling head-fake,'" Bishop wrote on social media on October 28, referring to a situation where one party claims it can win to put the other side on its heels. "I wish." He added that the campaign's internal polling in 2020 was also "very, very close."
Andrews has framed the race as a referendum on representation. "I think she thinks the job is to be a Washington ambassador to South Carolina, to come down here and tell us what Washington insiders and party bosses say," she said of Graham in an interview with the Greenville News. Graham, speaking to the Fourth District Republican Club, answered directly: "I'm not going to go up there and forget South Carolina. I want to come back to South Carolina on a regular basis."
The experience question has become central. In the Times/Siena poll, 51% of respondents, including 18% of Republicans, said Graham lacked the experience needed to be an effective senator, while 54%, including 22% of Republicans, said Andrews had the necessary experience. Graham acknowledged the issue herself during an August primary debate, saying: "I'm not that informed on national security." She has since championed a bill named for her late brother imposing sanctions on Iran and Russia.
Trump's Rock Hill appearance is itself a measure of Republican anxiety. It is his second trip to South Carolina this month, after a rally in Pendleton, and it comes in the Upstate, where Graham underperformed against Norman in her primary runoff. A Citadel poll released October 27 found that Graham's lead among registered Upstate voters grew from 6 points to 17 points after the Pendleton rally, suggesting the president's presence can still move numbers where it matters most.
This race matters because it tests the limits of partisan geography. If a Democrat can win a Senate seat in a state Trump carried by 18 points, in a midterm cycle where the president's party typically loses ground, then almost no Republican seat can be treated as safe. That is why national money is flooding in, why the president is spending a Thursday afternoon in Rock Hill rather than in a traditional swing state, and why a forecaster as prominent as Fox News felt compelled to move the race at all.
It matters, too, because of what Senate control would mean for the final two years of Trump's presidency. Polls and independent analysts favour Democrats to retake the House, while Senate control is considered too close to call. A Democratic Senate, on top of a Democratic House, could place real limits on Trump and usher in congressional investigations of his administration. A Republican Senate, even at 50 seats with Vance breaking ties, would preserve his ability to confirm judges and executive appointees.
Finally, it matters as a turnout test. With early voting already under way and record-setting turnout reported in South Carolina since voting opened on October 19, the race will hinge on whether Andrews can keep winning independents by the 57% to 37% margin the Times/Siena poll found, and whether Black and Democratic turnout in the state matches the enthusiasm her campaign claims. Polls do not vote; the next five days will decide whether the toss-up rating was prescient or premature.
The immediate calendar is short and intense. Trump's Rock Hill rally on Thursday is followed by Halloween at the White House on Thursday evening, and then two closed-press tele-rallies on Thursday night. Early voting in South Carolina ends on Saturday, October 31, and Election Day is Tuesday, November 3.
Expect more polling before Tuesday, and expect both campaigns to fight over the same voters: independents in the Upstate, disaffected Republicans like Brent Chaplin, a 37-year-old finance worker who told the Associated Press he is a registered Republican "but it's hard to be that right now," and the small but potentially decisive group of Norman supporters weighing a write-in.
Fox News will update its Power Rankings again before Election Day, and other forecasters, including Sabato's Crystal Ball, which shifted 21 races toward Democrats in its final-week update, will do the same. If the next polls confirm the tie, South Carolina will stay a toss-up until the votes are counted. If they show Graham pulling away, the forecaster will have to move it back, and the story of the week will be how a scare in a red state ended as a Republican hold. Either way, a race nobody expected to matter now sits at the centre of the fight for the Senate.
Why did Fox News move South Carolina to a toss-up?
Because a New York Times/Siena poll published October 28 tied Darline Graham and Annie Andrews at 48% each, and Fox's forecaster said the belief that the race is "uncomfortably close" is now widely shared.
Who are the candidates?
Darline Graham, a Republican disability advocate appointed in July after the death of her brother, longtime Senator Lindsey Graham, and Annie Andrews, a Democratic pediatrician and former congressional candidate.
When is the election?
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Early voting in South Carolina opened October 19 and ends October 31.
What does the toss-up mean for Senate control?
Fox's forecast now gives Democrats 48 seats and Republicans 46, with six toss-ups. Democrats could reach 54 on a good night; Republicans could hold up to 52 on theirs.
Has South Carolina ever elected a Democratic senator recently?
Not since 1998 in practical terms: the state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since Fritz Hollings, who served from 1966 to 2005.
Related coverage on US News Pulse: the Times/Siena poll tying Graham and Andrews at 48%, Trump's trip to Rock Hill for Graham, Sabato's Crystal Ball shifting 21 races toward Democrats and early voting passing 40 million ballots nationwide.
Leave a Comment
| Today's Date:
