President Trump branded South Carolina Senate candidate Annie Andrews with a nickname that ignited a firestorm.
Andrews rushed to defend her record on women's sports as reporters went looking for her paper trail.
What reporters found in her own 2022 words is not what she is telling voters now.
The 2022 Post Andrews Wants Everyone to Forget
Andrews is a pediatrician running to unseat Sen. Lindsey Graham in deep red South Carolina, and Trump has hammered her for weeks with the nickname "Annie Trannie" on Truth Social.
Andrews will not fight the nickname.
She told Fox News Digital that if calling her names lowers gas and diesel prices for South Carolina families, "he can call me all the names he wants."
That is not a defense. That is a candidate telling voters her convictions are for sale.
She also said she does not support biological men in women's sports or gender surgery on minors.
That claim runs straight into a 2022 tweet where she called South Carolina's Save Women's Sports Act "shameful" and "actively harmful."
The 2022 law was simple.
It kept biological males out of girls' and women's school sports and let injured students sue if a school broke the rule.
Andrews fought to kill that law.
Now she claims to agree with the outcome it was built to protect, and she would not say what changed her mind.
National Republican Senatorial Committee regional press secretary Nick Puglia was not buying it.
"Annie Andrews' blatant lies show just how desperate she is and how little she thinks of South Carolinians," Puglia said. "But nothing Andrews says or does will change her far-left record."
Rep. Nancy Mace caught Andrews running the identical play in 2022, when Andrews called a ban on transgender surgery for minors "dangerous" and an "attack on our youth" before quietly reversing herself the moment Mace called her out.
Democrats Across the Country Are Running From the Same Record
Andrews is not alone, and that is what should worry South Carolina voters most.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur is running Ohio ads bragging she "voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our schools," despite voting against the federal women's sports bill and co-sponsoring the Equality Act.
Rep. Don Davis cut a commercial backing "a safe and fair space for women and girls in sports" after skipping the 2023 vote on those same protections and voting present in 2025.
Texas Senate candidate James Talarico walked back his support for men in girls' sports "if it risks safety or fairness."
Iowa's Sarah Trone Garriott now says flatly, "I oppose letting men in women's locker rooms," after voting against a ban on exactly that.
LGBT activists are furious about the retreat.
Writer Erin Reed called it "getting out of control" and urged voters to abandon "anti-transgender Democrats."
A former Kaptur intern said he was "embarrassed" to have her name on his resume.
An August Pew Research Center poll put a number on the gap: just 13% of Americans said they are comfortable with transgender athletes competing against the opposite sex, while 73% said they are not.
Two out of three Americans, 66%, told Pew they would back laws keeping athletes on teams that match their biological sex, versus only 15% opposed, and 55% of self-described progressives said even they do not want males competing against women.
Andrews Did Not Find a Conscience, She Found a Poll
Pediatricians do not forget calling a bill "shameful" in writing.
Andrews knew exactly what she believed in 2022, and she is lying to South Carolina about it now.
Trump dragged those words into daylight, and 73% of the country already agrees with the law she tried to kill.
Kaptur, Davis, Talarico and Garriott are not having four separate changes of heart.
They are running from the same voters they have misled for a decade, on the same issue, in the same four weeks, because the same poll numbers are chasing all of them out of hiding.
South Carolina voters do not need Andrews to apologize for a tweet.
They need her to explain why it took a presidential nickname and a sinking approval number to drag her anywhere near the truth.
Sources:
- Leo Briceno, "Dem Scrambles to Change Tune on Trans Athletes as Trump Targets Past Record," Fox News, October 9, 2026.
- Dylan Gwinn, "Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Reject Allowing Men to Play on Women's Sports Teams," Breitbart, August 13, 2026.
- The Daily Wire, "Vulnerable Dem Suddenly Discovers What a Woman Is With His Seat on the Line," The Daily Wire, 2026.
- The Blaze, "Vulnerable Ohio Democrats' Last Minute Opposition to Trans Insanity Has LGBT Activists Crying, Republicans Calling BS," The Blaze, 2026.
