South Carolina’s 2026 Senate election offers voters four substantially different choices: Democratic pediatrician Annie Andrews, Republican Senator Darline Graham, Libertarian educator and businesswoman Kasie Whitener, and Constitution Party candidate Mark Hackett. The general election is November 3. Absentee ballots for qualified voters begin going out about 30 days before the election, and early in-person voting begins October 19.
The candidates differ not only on conventional domestic issues but also on questions that have become increasingly important in our Senate evaluations: congressional independence, presidential war powers, American alliances and the willingness of senators to challenge presidents of their own party.
Darline Graham
Darline Graham entered the Senate under extraordinary circumstances after the unexpected death of her brother, Senator Lindsey Graham. Before her appointment, she had spent nearly three decades in South Carolina public service, including leadership of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind.
Her economic and regulatory instincts are generally conventional Republican ones, emphasizing lower taxes, restrained government and work. But her short Senate tenure has already provided more evidence on foreign policy and institutional questions than was available when we first examined the race.
Most importantly, Graham became the lead Senate sponsor of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 after her brother’s death. The legislation passed the Senate 86–11 and the House 262–159 before Trump signed it into law on September 18. It imposes and expands sanctions connected with Russia’s war against Ukraine and extends sanctions on Iran. Graham deserves substantial credit for carrying an important piece of her brother’s unfinished work through Congress.
That is particularly important to us because one of Lindsey Graham’s strongest attributes was his understanding of foreign affairs and his support for NATO, Ukraine and sustained American engagement with allies.
His sister has not yet demonstrated comparable command of those subjects. During the Republican runoff debate, she was asked whether Taiwan and the South China Sea were national-security interests of the United States. She responded that she was “not that informed on national security” and that national security was not her area of expertise. Afterward, she emphasized that South Carolinians were more concerned about their pocketbooks than the South China Sea.
The candor is preferable to pretending to possess expertise she does not have. But China, Taiwan, Russia, Europe and the international order are not peripheral concerns for a United States senator.
Graham’s record also raises a separate question about congressional independence. On July 30 she voted against discharging a War Powers resolution directing the removal of U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran that Congress had not authorized. The motion failed 49–50. Republican Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul voted to allow the resolution to proceed; Graham did not.
That vote matters because Congress is not merely an adjunct to a president of the same political party. Its constitutional powers matter most when exercising them is politically uncomfortable.
Graham is also closely aligned politically with President Trump. During the Republican runoff she pledged to “have President Trump’s back 100 percent”. While that does not establish how she would vote on every issue, 100% is suggestive. Combined with the War Powers vote it raises a legitimate question about how independently she would act when congressional authority and presidential preference diverge.
On abortion, Graham describes herself as strongly pro-life and has supported federal restrictions. Her record is substantially more restrictive than our preference for preserving meaningful reproductive choice, particularly earlier in pregnancy.
Graham therefore presents a mixed picture. Her successful work on the Russia sanctions legislation is a significant positive. But her limited preparation on foreign policy and early record of deference to presidential authority raise important questions about the kind of senator she would become.
Annie Andrews
Annie Andrews offers a very different background. She has spent nearly two decades as a pediatrician in South Carolina and has built a campaign centered on health care, family economics, reproductive rights, immigration reform, gun policy and political accountability.
Her health-care position is notably short of Medicare for All. Andrews instead calls for “policies like a public option”, protection and expansion of Medicare and Medicaid, lower prescription-drug costs, improved mental-health access, stronger vaccine access and public-health preparedness, and support for rural hospitals.
That formulation leaves an important question unanswered. Public-option proposals vary enormously. A government plan competing on substantially the same terms as private insurers could coexist with a predominantly private insurance system. A heavily subsidized plan using government reimbursement rates and possessing advantages unavailable to private competitors could gradually displace much of the private market. Andrews has not yet specified provider reimbursement, eligibility, subsidy levels or enough other detail to determine which model she favors.
Her broader domestic program is center-left. Andrews favors higher wages, stronger worker protections, paid family leave and greater government support for health care and childcare. She supports restoring federal abortion protections and protecting contraception and infertility care.
On immigration, she combines stronger border security with due process and a path to citizenship for people who work and follow the rules. That is considerably closer to our approach than either open borders or a policy centered primarily on deportation.
Andrews also takes a clear position on presidential war powers. She says Congress should have to approve the use of military force and opposes open-ended wars. Her criticism of the current Iran conflict is substantive as well as constitutional: she argues that the war was unnecessary and that diplomacy offers a better route to preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon.
We may disagree with that substantive judgment. Military action against Iran is not necessarily unjustified. But sustained hostilities should proceed with congressional authorization and as part of a strategy with defined objectives and a reasonable prospect of achieving them. On that institutional question, Andrews’s position is clear.
The more important uncertainty concerns her broader foreign-policy outlook. We still have not found sufficiently developed positions from Andrews on Ukraine, NATO, Russia, China and the postwar international order. Opposition to unnecessary military intervention can coexist with strong support for alliances and for countries resisting aggression, but it can also shade into a broader retreat from American international leadership.
Those distinctions matter. Andrews should make clear whether she supports continued American leadership in defending Ukraine and sustaining NATO and maintaining the network of alliances that has contributed to international stability for eight decades.
Kasie Whitener
Kasie Whitener is the Libertarian nominee and the most unconventional of the three candidates who will participate in the October debate. She is an educator at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business, a business owner, writer and longtime Libertarian activist.
Her central domestic concern is the national debt. Unlike candidates who promise that growth, higher taxes or elimination of waste can solve the problem by themselves, Whitener argues explicitly that serious deficit reduction will eventually require changes to Social Security and Medicare. She favors a balanced-budget amendment and reform of Social Security and Medicare, spending reductions, tax simplification and mechanisms intended to constrain future deficits.
Her health-care approach is considerably more market-oriented than either major-party candidate’s. She favors separating health insurance from employment, reducing government intervention in insurance and medical markets, and eventually reducing the federal government’s role in Medicare and Medicaid.
That willingness to confront entitlement spending deserves attention. So does her recognition that consumers pay for tariffs.
Whitener is also unusually explicit about presidential war powers. She has criticized military actions taken without congressional authorization and argues that Congress has surrendered too much of its constitutional responsibility.
Her broader foreign policy is more nuanced than the simple label “isolationist” would suggest. Whitener explicitly says, “I am not an isolationist.” She favors diplomacy, free trade, military readiness and engagement with other countries while opposing unilateral military action, preemptive war and the idea that the United States should intervene wherever democracy is threatened. She also argues that allies should bear more responsibility for their own defense.
That still leaves important questions about NATO and Ukraine. Opposition to unnecessary intervention is compatible with maintaining alliances and helping countries resist aggression. We would like to know more precisely where Whitener draws that line.
Her published record also remains comparatively thin on abortion and several other social issues.
Whitener therefore presents an unusual combination: the strongest emphasis on fiscal restraint, perhaps the most market-oriented domestic program, and the clearest criticism of executive war-making, combined with a foreign-policy philosophy whose implications for NATO and Ukraine remain uncertain.
Mark Hackett
Mark Hackett is the Constitution Party candidate.
His published program is much shorter but unusually explicit. The South Carolina Constitution Party advertises his candidacy with the positions “Defund Israel. Defund Ukraine. Defund the UN. Get out of NATO.” Hackett also promises to vote against legislation that does not reduce the national debt and opposes undeclared wars.
His concern about the debt and opposition to presidentially initiated wars overlap with issues we take seriously.
His proposed withdrawal from NATO and termination of support for Ukraine do not. We regard the Atlantic alliance, support for countries resisting aggression and continued American participation in the international order as important to both American security and global stability.
Hackett therefore supplies a clearer foreign-policy answer than some of the other candidates, but it is one fundamentally different from ours.
Where Our Evaluation Stands: A Provisional Endorsement
The four candidates present unusually different combinations of strengths, weaknesses and unanswered questions.
Graham combines conventional conservative domestic policy with a genuine accomplishment in carrying the Russia sanctions legislation into law. But her limited preparation on national security, close identification with President Trump and early deference to presidential authority on war powers raise questions about congressional independence.
Andrews combines a more expansive domestic role for government with positions much closer to ours on reproductive freedom, immigration, public health and congressional war powers. She supports restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade, combines stronger border security with due process and a path to citizenship, and has placed unusual emphasis on scientific research, vaccine access and public-health preparedness. She also says Congress should have to approve the use of military force. Those are meaningful points of agreement.
We have substantial reservations about the remainder of her domestic agenda. Her approach generally assigns a larger role to government than we would prefer, and important questions remain about the design of her proposed public health-insurance option and several of her economic policies.
Our larger uncertainty concerns foreign policy. Andrews has been clear about opposing open-ended wars and insisting on congressional authorization, but she has said much less about Ukraine, NATO, Russia, China and the broader international order. We would like to know whether her skepticism about military intervention is accompanied by continued support for the alliances and international engagement that we believe remain essential to American security.
Whitener offers the strongest emphasis on fiscal restraint and market mechanisms and a clear challenge to unilateral presidential war-making. Her recent statements make clear that she does not consider herself an isolationist, but more information is needed about what her noninterventionist instincts would mean for NATO, Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel.
Hackett provides much less ambiguity: he advocates ending American support for Ukraine and Israel and leaving NATO and the United Nations. Those positions are fundamentally at odds with our approach to American foreign policy.
One additional consideration tips our present judgment toward Andrews: the value of congressional independence and divided government at this particular moment. The Madisonian system depends on Congress serving as an effective check on executive power. In practice, members of Congress are often less willing to exercise that responsibility against a president of their own party. That problem is by no means confined to Republicans. Historical research finds substantially more aggressive congressional oversight when the presidency and Congress are controlled by different parties.
That consideration has become increasingly important in our Senate evaluations. Graham’s pledge to have President Trump’s back “100 percent,” coupled with her vote against allowing the Iran War Powers resolution to proceed, gives us less confidence that she would provide an independent congressional check when one is needed. Andrews’s insistence that Congress exercise its constitutional authority over sustained military action points in the opposite direction.
On the evidence presently available, CIVPAC therefore provisionally endorses Annie Andrews for the United States Senate.
This is a provisional endorsement for a reason. It rests primarily on the present value of divided government and congressional independence, together with Andrews’s positions on reproductive freedom, immigration and evidence-based public health. It comes with substantial reservations about the remainder of her domestic agenda and significant unanswered questions about her foreign-policy outlook.
We will review this endorsement after the October 11 South Carolina ETV debate, in which Andrews, Graham and Whitener are scheduled to participate. We will be listening particularly for Andrews’s views on Ukraine, NATO and American international leadership; Graham’s willingness to exercise congressional independence from a president of her own party; and Whitener’s explanation of what her noninterventionist foreign policy would mean in practice.
If the debate or subsequent policy statements materially alter the evidence, we will reconsider the endorsement.
P.S. — October 12, 2026
On October 9, President Trump announced an agreement with Russia to increase diesel supplies, accompanied by a temporary relaxation of U.S. sanctions. A bipartisan group of seven senators, including four Republicans, called for reversing the decision, arguing that it conflicts with restrictions on Russian energy imports intended to limit revenues supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine.
It is our view that this is unlikely to have a significant effect on U.S. diesel prices, because the global market is huge. As Reuters reported on October 12, analysts doubt the agreement will significantly reduce U.S. diesel prices, noting that the promised supplies amount to only about 12 hours of global diesel consumption.
Despite the fact that the supplies in question are unlikely to have a significant effect on prices, they could provide a significant amount of revenue to Russia, aiding its unprovoked war against Ukraine. According to a Reuters analysis published October 12, the initial 300,000 metric tons of Russian diesel exports could generate approximately $400 million in revenue for Russia and its energy industry.
During the October 11 Senate debate, Darline Graham, who helped secure passage of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, did not join that criticism. Instead, she emphasized the sanctions legislation as a tool available to the president, while deferring to his judgment about its use. The Washington Post also reported that she praised Trump’s recent diesel-policy change.
Her support for sanctions legislation remains part of her record. Her response to the diesel agreement, however, is relevant to an unresolved question raised in our original evaluation: how independently she would exercise her judgment when the administration’s decisions conflict with policies she has previously supported.
Based on this new information we are changing our endorsement of Annie Andrews from provisional to a full endorsement.