In her victory speech on Tuesday night, Sen. Darline Graham attacked Dr. Annie Andrews’ support for expanding healthcare access. In the same breath, Graham described how both of her parents worked while sick and died when she was a child, the kind of story her own party’s healthcare policy would recreate for South Carolina families today.
“Dr. Annie Andrews is a practicing pediatrician who has spent her career caring for patients and fighting to expand Medicaid access. Darline Graham has never practiced medicine, never held elected office, and was appointed to the Senate for one reason: she is Lindsey Graham’s sister. Now she wants a six-year term making healthcare decisions for a state she just told, on camera, that losing access to care killed her own parents,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, President of 314 Action.
It’s not a question who voters trust more on this. Recent polling from Data for Progress found that voters overwhelmingly trust doctors, nurses, and scientists, and distrust the politicians and media personalities driving MAHA-style attacks on healthcare access. Voters trust their own doctor at 90 percent, while RFK Jr. sits at 40 percent. A 2025 Pew Research study similarly found that 76 percent of Americans have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s interest.
South Carolina voters have already weighed in once. Dr. Andrews won her Democratic primary outright in June with 61.5 percent of the vote in a three-way field. Graham needed a runoff and $827,000 just to get her party’s nomination, and Graham’s vote count compared to Andrew’s impressive 226,075 votes, shows Andrews earned more raw votes winning her primary outright than Graham did in a head-to-head runoff last night.
South Carolina voters can choose a career politician with no medical background and no answer for her own family’s story, or a pediatrician who has spent her career at the bedside of sick children on their worst day. It’s Darline vs. the Doctor—the choice is clear.