Democrats may shape a midterm message around the GOP plan to spend $1 billion on security for the White House renovation that will build President Donald Trump’s ballroom.

It would start with Annie Andrews.

The South Carolina Democrat is running against Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of Congress’ top proponents of Trump’s ballroom and its security needs. Andrews made clear that it will be campaign gold for her if Republicans vote for the money in their forthcoming party-line spending bill.

“That will go over like a lead balloon in South Carolina, and we will use that in our campaign every single day between now and the general election,” Andrews told Semafor on Wednesday. She said she would “talk about what a billion dollars could buy you in South Carolina,” from teacher salaries to SNAP recipients to roads in bridges.

“That’s just not landing with voters who are tired of paying higher grocery prices and higher prescription drug prices,” Andrews said of the plan.

Though both still need to win their June primaries, the match-up between Andrews, a pediatrician who once ran against Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Graham, a four-term senator who morphed from a Trump critic into one of his closest allies, is shaping up to be a wildcard Senate race. And though it’s by no means a focal point of the Senate battlegrounds, that could change this summer if the environment deteriorates further for Republicans.

Asked for comment on the race, Nick Puglia, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said: “Who is Annie Andrews?”

Still, Senate Democrats’ campaign arm is indicating the ballroom could factor into plenty of races: Maeve Coyle, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said “while families are paying the price for the GOP’s cost-raising agenda at the grocery store, the gas pump, and the doctor’s office, Republicans are building a gilded ballroom and telling voters to just ‘earn more’ and give up ‘personal luxuries,’” referring to quotes from several GOP candidates.

Andrews argued Graham’s focus on the ballroom along with cost-of-living, the Iran war, and forthcoming Medicaid cuts are all contributing to a more fertile environment than when she first launched her campaign a year ago.

“The political environment continues to shift in Democrats’ favor for a lot of really horrific reasons,” Andrews said. “He’s operating as if he’s untouchable, but he’s seeing the same polling I’m seeing, and he knows he’s not.”

Still, Graham seems to be preparing for a coming storm even as he deviates little from Trump, whose approval is slightly underwater now in South Carolina, a state he won by 18 points in 2024 but smaller margins in previous elections. Graham told Semafor that Andrews will “raise a lot of money. I’ll take her seriously. She doesn’t fit the state. She’d be the most liberal person ever nominated by the Democratic Party for the Senate.”

He said taking Andrews’ challenge earnestly is paramount despite defeating former state Sen. Jaime Harrison handily in 2020: “If you don’t in this environment, you’re crazy.”