Republicans Start to Get Concerned about Special Elections

March 27, 2025

According to Punchbowl News, Trump is pulling the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefank (R-NY) as UN Ambassador in an effort to protect the Republicans’ razor thin majority in the House. This is a remarkable development since it suggests Republicans are genuinely concerned about losing next Tuesday’s special election in Florida’s 6^th Congressional District. For the past few weeks, I have been getting texts from the campaign of Democratic candidate Josh Weil claiming that the race was close. This is a typical campaign fundraising tactic and, in the absence of any other data, I did not take it seriously. However, maybe we should.

Elise Stefanik waves goodbye to her shot at being UN Ambassador so she can stay in the House and help Trump end Medicaid. Photo source: WJHL

There are two special elections in Florida on Tuesday, and both are in strongly Republican districts. The 1^st District, which is vacant due to the resignation of former Rep. and one-time AG nominee Matt Gaetz (R-FL), is in the panhandle region of Florida and is otherwise a typical Southern congressional district where Republicans have a huge advantage because voting is highly correlated with race. The Democratic candidate there may overperform, but she likely will not come close to winning the seat. The 6^th is another matter. This district contains an urban area (Daytona Beach) and Democrats have been competitive at times in the past (although we have to go back about ten years). Nevertheless, we would normally expect the Republican to win by 20-30 points here.

It does not appear that the Republican candidate is going to win by double-digits this time – and it is possible he could lose. The only public polling we have is a recent one from St. Pete’s Polls, which has the Republican leading by just four points. But from the behavior of Republican officials it would appear that their internal numbers at least agree with St. Pete’s findings. In the past few days, Republicans have started to distance themselves from the nominee - a Trump-endorsed MAGA state senator - and claim he is a terrible candidate. As the Down Ballot notes, Republicans used this same tactic in 2017 as they lost ground to Democrats in races that should not have been close. Those races foreshadowed the wave election in 2018. Republicans are clearly concerned a similar wave may be forming against them for 2026.

Source: G. Elliott Morris; The Down Ballot

Since the beginning of the year, there have been 12 special elections. Democrats have overperformed Harris in 2024 on average of ten points. At a similar point in 2017, Democrats were overperforming Clinton in 2016 by nine points. While most of the 12 races were in safe districts and the overperformance did not change the outcome, Democrats have flipped two seats. One of those occurred two days ago in Pennsylvania in a state senate district that Trump won by 15 points and Republicans have never lost and in a county that Democratic presidential nominees have won only once (1964) since 1856. While the result was close (less than one point), the Democratic nominee did not play it safe during the campaign – as Democratic party leaders, donors, and consultants would typically counsel. He argued for the need to elect more Democrats to office and did not shy away from supporting progressive causes, including Planned Parenthood. Perhaps going bold rather than safe has its benefits. Voters appreciate authenticity, and safe campaigns reek of calculation and phoniness.

Next Tuesday we will have a chance to see whether Democrats continue to overperform in special and off-year elections not just in Florida, but in Wisconsin. The state Supreme Court race there will once again decide the ideological balance of a court that has in the past helped Republicans implement partisan gerrymanders that gave them disproportional share of legislative seats relative to vote share. The Wisconsin vote is arguably the most important election so far this year, but if everything goes right for Josh Weil, we might see the GOP’s House majority shrink to almost its breaking point.