Fox News projects Democrat Annie Andrews will win South Carolina's Senate race

Fox News now displays a projection that Democrat Annie Andrews will defeat Republican Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina's Senate race, according to the network's results page. The page does not say when the call was made, so it is unclear whether it came after the last update to this story.

The projection is one of three calls that matter. The Associated Press, Fox News and NBC must all call the race for the same candidate. AP and NBC calls have not been confirmed. If any of the three does not, official certification decides the outcome.

Traders now treat an Andrews win as certain, though the race has not been officially called by all three outlets. Her chances were a long shot at the start of October and stayed well short of even through most of the month, drifting up only slowly. They rose further on Monday and Tuesday. Late Tuesday night they dipped sharply from a toss-up to unlikely, then recovered within minutes, climbed to likely and settled at certain as the count came in. Bets on a Republican win collapsed to a long shot over the same stretch.

The likely reason for that surge was the vote count. Andrews held her lead as ballots were tallied on Tuesday, according to Poliwave. Its AP-sourced tracker showed her ahead 51.1% to 46.8% with 86.2% of precincts reporting, and Poliwave separately called the race for her.

The contest was unusually close for a state that has long leaned Republican. Gov. Henry McMaster appointed Graham to the Senate after her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, died. She won the Republican nomination in an Aug. 25 runoff and faced Andrews, a pediatrician who had already won the Democratic primary. A New York Times/Siena poll on Oct. 28 put the two level at 48%, and Fox moved its rating of the race to toss-up the next day.

Counting continues. County boards are due to certify results by Friday, Nov. 6, and an automatic recount applies if the winning margin is 1% or less. The next thing to watch is whether AP and NBC join Fox in calling the race for Andrews. If they do not, official certification will decide it.