Jaw-dropping Senate endorsement sure to spark MAGA fury

In South Carolina's 2026 U.S. Senate race, GOP Sen. Darline Graham — enthusiastically endorsed by President Donald Trump — is up against moderate Democrat Annie Andrews, a physician. Andrews and other Democrats know that she's fighting an uphill battle, as Trump won the deep red state by 18 percent in 2024. But conservative George Will, in his Washington Post column, hopes that South Carolina will show "independence" from Trump in this race.

"In November," Will writes in the Post, "South Carolinians' choice of their next U.S. senator will indicate whether their pride about their independence still endures … This year, South Carolinians can demonstrate political independence by electing Democrat Annie Andrews. She is a 45-year-old mother of three and a pediatrician who likes children and wants to be in the U.S. Senate."

The Never Trump conservative continues, "When Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham died in July, the governor appointed his sister, Darline Graham, to finish his term. When she decided to seek the Republican nomination for a full term, President Donald Trump endorsed her, so she won the primary despite a cringeworthy debate performance. Asked about Taiwan, she said: 'I'm not that informed on national security.'"

Will notes that Darline Graham is using culture-war issues to attack Andrews, trying to paint her as being further left than she actually is.

"Andrews has graduated from medical school, so she knows what it is to know things, and how dangerous it can be to get things wrong," the Post columnist writes. "She is not a political rookie, having unsuccessfully run for Congress in 2022. She pleases her party's base by being displeased with pharmaceutical companies, and what she considers insufficiently severe taxation of the wealthy. The top 10 percent of earners pay 70 percent of federal income taxes."

Will continues, "In this year of an inconclusive war, a soaring deficit and stubborn inflation, many Republican candidates seem most worried about transgender matters. Graham, emulating the rhetorical style of her presidential patron, wrote in a Fox News op-ed that Andrews is 'the worst pediatrician in the country' because she 'supports turning confused little boys into little girls and vice versa.' Andrews, who opposes gender surgery on minors, says such surgery has never occurred in South Carolina."

The conservative columnist points out that Darline Graham is quick to repeat MAGA talking points.

"Graham promises she will not be senatorial, as the Framers understood that adjective," Will explains. "She expresses unshakable faith in Trump's Iran war, his tariffs and everything else: 'I will have President Trump's back 100 percent.' So, of course, Graham wants all illegal immigrants deported 'immediately.' Her state might immediately miss a significant portion of its immigrant population, which makes up 6 percent of South Carolinians, accounts for 7.7 percent of the state's labor force and pays $3.5 billion in state taxes."

Nonetheless, Will acknowledges that South Carolina "is as red as the cheeks of a blushing Senate candidate."

The last time a Democrat carried South Carolina in a presidential election was Jimmy Carter in 1976.

"By taking Lindsey Graham's sister away from her admirable work advocating for people with disabilities," Will argues, "the president is proclaiming that he can do whatever wants. And he expresses a disdain for the Senate, as well as for South Carolina. Today's president, like many of his predecessors, but more than any, aggrandizes his power by maximizing the abject subordination of his entire party. It is perhaps too much to hope that today's South Carolina might spurn a Senate candidate too servile to secede from Donald Trump's domination. Still, come November, hope for evidence that South Carolina, which historically has been so truculent about its independence, has actually exercised it."