South Carolina Ballot: Split Tickets Decide Top Races
Crossover voting in the November 3 election pushed both the governor and Senate races to narrow margins despite record turnout.
By Diego Mendoza ·
Split-ticket voting determined the winners of South Carolina’s two most high-profile contests on Nov. 3.
State voting data, released as results are certified, shows voters frequently chose different candidates for governor and U.S. Senate. This behavior created a lopsided dynamic within each party’s own ticket. The total vote count reached 2,052,130. That figure represents nearly 60% of registered voters in the state. It stands as the largest total vote volume and highest turnout for a gubernatorial election in South Carolina history.
On the Democratic side, the disparity was stark. Dr. Annie Andrews, the Senate candidate, received 83,361 more votes than gubernatorial candidate Jermaine Johnson. Andrews was the only Democrat in a statewide race to cross the one million vote threshold. She defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Darline Graham. The Republican ticket showed a similar, though mirrored, trend. Governor-elect Alan Wilson secured just over 99,000 votes more than Graham. This gap signals decisive crossover activity among Republican voters.
Both the governor and Senate races were decided by margins of approximately 91,000 votes. These figures account for all ballots, including those cast for third-party candidates and write-ins. The closeness of these races underscores the impact of voters prioritizing one office over another within the same party lineup.
Early voting also set a new benchmark for the state’s midterm elections. For the first time, more ballots were cast before Election Day than at polling precincts on Tuesday. Official data indicates 1,034,885 votes were cast during the two-week early voting window from Oct. 19 to Oct. 31. This number accounts for more than half of all ballots cast statewide.
The combination of historic participation and tens of thousands of crossover ballots shaped the final outcome. The data confirms that voters in the 2026 midterm cycle did not vote uniformly across the top of the ballot. Instead, they selected candidates based on individual preferences for each office.
