South Carolina’s Democratic senator-elect, Annie Andrews, has drawn renewed attention to old social media posts criticizing Republicans and strongly supporting transgender rights. The posts resurfaced after her win earlier this month in a state President Donald Trump carried by about 18 percentage points.
In a 2023 post, Andrews wrote that the “T” in LGBTQ+ stood for transgender and urged people who did not support transgender people to keep their Pride messages to themselves. Around the same time, she said she supported transgender children because she was “not an a**hole.”
Those remarks contrast with the more moderate image Andrews adopted during her campaign against Republican Sen. Darline Graham. She sought support from Republicans and independents and later distanced herself from some of her earlier views on transgender issues.
Before entering the Senate race, Andrews also made sharp attacks on the Republican Party, a tone at odds with her campaign’s emphasis on working across party lines. In August 2024, she said the party should be set on fire, thrown in a dumpster and sent to the bottom of the ocean. The post followed mockery on social media of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s son.
In another post, she joked that herpes was permanent, while JD Vance was not. She also responded to Republican Sen. Katie Britt discussing a White House visit with a remark suggesting Britt had been let out of the kitchen, invoking a traditional stereotype about women’s roles.
As Election Day approached, Andrews made efforts to appeal to voters outside her party. At an October town hall promoted as “Republicans and Independents for Annie,” she said the campaign was for people focused on costs, rural hospitals and government integrity, rather than party labels. She said she would work with both parties if elected and that her campaign was not only for Democrats.
Andrews also posted in support of abortion access, drag story hours and tighter firearm restrictions. In one repost, semi-automatic rifles were described as “weapons of war.”
Independent journalist Zaid Jilani responded to one of the resurfaced posts by saying Republicans had spent their resources trying to defeat another candidate and had done little opposition research on Andrews.
Republicans did, however, bring up her past comments during the campaign. In October, National Republican Senatorial Committee adviser Nathan Brand accused Andrews of having supported transgender athletes in girls’ sports and medical procedures for minors, and said she was now reversing those positions. Brand’s comments came after Andrews released an ad opposing the participation of biological males in women’s sports.
Republicans made transgender issues a major focus of the 2026 election cycle, including calls to prohibit gender-related medical procedures for children and bar biological men from competing in women’s sports. The emphasis did not stop the party from losing some traditionally safe seats, while several ballot measures restricting transgender rights passed in liberal states.
Andrews’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
