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SHE WANTS LINDSEY GRAHAM’S SENATE SEAT  
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Emma Janssen
July 14, 2026
The New Republic
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_ Since Lindsay Graham's death, Democratic pediatrician Annie Andrews
doesn’t know whom she’ll be running against this fall, but she
knows what she's for, including impeaching RFK, Jr. _

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Senator Lindsey Graham’s death on Saturday shocked Washington, D.C.
It also upended the race for Senate in South Carolina, where the
longtime incumbent was facing a Democratic challenger in Dr. Annie
Andrews, a 45-year-old pediatrician. Now Andrews doesn’t know whom
she’ll face in November, but she still knows exactly why she’s
running. She wants to help fix the health care system—and to start
by getting rid of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaxxer in charge of
Health and Human Services. 

“The day that RFK Jr. was nominated to lead HHS was the day that I
really seriously started considering running for this seat,” she
told me on Monday. “RFK Jr. has been my professional archnemesis for
decades, and there are thousands of pediatricians across the country
who would say the same thing.”

Andrews was born in Kentucky and raised in Indiana before moving to
South Carolina in 2009 to work at MUSC Children’s Hospital in
Charleston. But she didn’t get involved in politics until the
Parkland school shooting in 2018 moved her to join Moms Demand Action,
the gun violence prevention group. In 2022, she challenged House
Representative Nancy Mace but lost by 14 points.

Her race against Graham was looking to be closer
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November poll had Graham up six points, and the margin was only three
in a poll last month. Now it’s unclear who her Republican opponent
will be. The state GOP will hold a primary on August 11, with a runoff
on August 25 if no candidate reaches 50 percent of the vote. 

Andrews says she plans to run a positive campaign focused on the
issues she cares about. “I’m thinking about how we move forward as
a state together, how we can get past this hyperpartisan, divisive
moment and era, frankly, of American politics,” she said. “I
don’t want to be a career politician. I see politics as a path to
efficiently and effectively solve my patients’ and their families’
problems.”

Andrews said that when she started her career as a pediatrician, it
was a given that her patients were fully vaccinated. In recent years,
she has had to brace herself when asking parents about their child’s
vaccination status. She pointed to the April 2025 measles outbreak of
nearly 1,000 cases in South Carolina as one example of how the Trump
administration has harmed children.

“South Carolina is a state that never expanded Medicaid. We have 15
counties without an ob-gyn, we have multiple rural hospitals on the
chopping block because of the impending Medicaid budget cuts. We have
federally qualified health centers that have already closed their
doors. So no matter where I am across the state, that issue comes up
in every conversation I’m having with voters,” she said.

Andrews argues that she’s the right candidate for a moment when
health care access and affordability are top of mind for South
Carolinians. “You cannot fight bad politics by staying apolitical.
So the only way to fight back against the politicization of pediatric
health care and health care as a whole in this country is by engaging
in politics on the other side,” she said. Andrews says she wants to
lower the cost of prescription drugs, get private equity out of health
care, and impeach RFK Jr.

In recent years, a number of Democratic physicians have decided to run
for office, and many of them have origin stories that echo
Andrews’s. In Michigan, public health professional Abdul El-Sayed
has made Medicare for All a crucial part of his policy platform. Adam
Hamawy, who won his primary in New Jersey’s 12th congressional
district, is a former combat surgeon who saved Senator Tammy
Duckworth’s life and treated patients in Gaza.

Andrews attributes her strong polling numbers to her political
identity as a no-nonsense medical professional. She’s trying to stay
away from tensions in the Democratic Party between the progressive and
centrist wings. “I don’t identify on any particular part of the
political ideological spectrum because to me it’s about naming the
problem and solving the problem, and it’s about being pragmatic
about it,” she said. “Regardless of who my opponent is, there’s
something about me and our campaign and my candidacy that is breaking
through those typical partisan voting patterns.”

Now she’s looking ahead and doesn’t seem too troubled by whoever
her opponent will be. Among the names being floated are  Lieutenant
Governor Pamela Evette, Representative Ralph Norman, and Graham’s
most recent primary challenger, Mark Lynch. Mace, who sparred with
Andrews during the 2022 election, has also expressed interest in
running.

“Nancy Mace likes to make news cycles about her, and I wouldn’t at
all be surprised if she does end up getting in this race, despite the
fact that she just came in fifth in the Republican gubernatorial
primary here in South Carolina just a little over a month ago,”
Andrews said. “I’m sure there’s a lot of folks here in the Low
Country who would be intrigued to see a rematch of me and Nancy
Mace.”

_EMMA JANSSEN_ [[link removed]]_ IS A
STAFF WRITER AT THE NEW REPUBLIC._

_The New Republic_ [[link removed]]_ was founded in 1914 to
bring liberalism into the modern era. The founders understood that the
challenges facing a nation transformed by the Industrial Revolution
and mass immigration required bold new thinking._

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and how to fight for a fairer political economy in an age of rampaging
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* South Carolina
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* U.S. Senate
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* Lindsay Graham
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