Donald Trump jumped into South Carolina’s increasingly competitive Senate race Sunday with a deeply personal attack on Democratic candidate Dr. Annie Andrews, repeatedly using an offensive anti-transgender nickname while urging voters to support Republican Sen. Darline Graham.
Trump posted the attack on Truth Social Sunday evening.
“Annie ‘Trannie’ Andrews is running against our wonderful Darline Graham for the Senate in South Carolina,” Trump wrote.
It wasn’t a one-off.
Trump repeated the nickname multiple times during the lengthy post while attacking Andrews’ positions on immigration, taxes, policing, the military, gun rights and transgender issues.
The president also lavished praise on Graham, the sister of the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was appointed to fill her brother’s seat following his death earlier this year.
Trump claimed Lindsey Graham frequently praised his sister to him as exceptionally reliable, intelligent and loyal.
Darline Graham was appointed to the vacant Senate seat in July and later won the Republican nomination after Trump threw his support behind her campaign.
Now she faces Andrews, a pediatrician and former Democratic candidate for Congress, in November’s general election.
And what was once expected to be a relatively comfortable Republican race has become considerably tighter.
A September 14 Rasmussen Reports poll of 1,006 likely South Carolina voters showed Graham leading Andrews 48% to 43%.
But a more recent InsiderAdvantage survey conducted September 28–29 put Graham at 46% and Andrews at 45% — a remarkably narrow margin in a state Republicans have dominated in federal elections for decades.
That tightening race provides important context for Trump’s intervention.
His Truth Social post wasn’t simply another national broadside against Democrats. It was an explicit endorsement of Graham coupled with a direct attack on the Democrat trying to take the seat.
Trump claimed Andrews supports “Open Borders,” “Defunding the Police,” high taxes and taking away guns, among other accusations.
Andrews has pushed back against Republican efforts to characterize her as holding far-left positions. Her campaign has instead emphasized health care, affordability and issues affecting South Carolina families.
Trump nevertheless made culture-war issues central to his attack — and repeatedly turned Andrews’ first name into the offensive nickname.
The South Carolina contest has attracted increasing national attention precisely because of how unusual its competitiveness has become.
The state hasn’t elected a Democratic U.S. senator since 1998.
Yet recent polling has shown Andrews within striking distance of Graham, forcing Republicans to devote attention to a seat that ordinarily would not be near the top of the national Senate battlefield.
Trump has already invested personally in Graham.
He recommended that South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster appoint her after Lindsey Graham’s death, subsequently encouraged her to run for the full term and endorsed her campaign.
Sunday’s post makes clear that he intends to remain involved.
Whether Trump’s attack changes the trajectory of the race remains to be seen.
But with Election Day approaching and recent polling showing an unexpectedly close contest, the president has now inserted himself directly into one of the country’s most surprising Senate fights.
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